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Class Z- 1 ' ; Co 

Rnuk -I\ oCd 

Copyright K 0 _ 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 

















Tales of the Print Shop 







“Thirteen minutes past seven, Dan!” roared the tiny 
figure on the type-specimen book. 










Tales of the Print Shop 


By 

JOHN EDWARD ALLEN 

M 


Illustrated by 

HOWARD W. SCOTT 



New York 

Oswald Publishing Company 
1923 





VN 


1 

Copyright, 1923, by 
John Edward Allen 


• 4 


Printed in the United States of America 


v . 

* • t 



©Cl A752050 


DEDICATED TO 
ALL GOOD PRINTERS 
NOT ALWAYS 
SERIOUS 






A Word in A dvance 




Eighteen of these stories have appeared in five 
publications devoted to printing. Most of the sto¬ 
ries have been signed “Jack Edwards” by me, but sev¬ 
eral of them have carried my full name. As some of 
the stories have attracted reprinting in various 
localities, and as all of them possess in common lead¬ 
ing attributes opposed to seriousness, they have been 
brought together here in the hope of forming an 
acceptable volume of lighter-vein stories of printing. 

Acknowledgments of thanks for permission to re¬ 
print copyrighted material are due “The American 
Printer,” “The Linotype Bulletin” “The New Eng¬ 
land Printer ” “Printing,” and “The Print Review.” 

John Edward Allen. 


New York City, March 1,1923. 





























“ 











I 














Run o’ the Hook 




The Straight of Things. 

Launcelot and His Two Sons. 

Some Inside Information. 

Hubert Malnutritious Clingstone, Printer 

What’s the Use of Dying?. 

How Printer Jenkins Solved the Problem 
Platen & Junk, Master Typographers . 

The Psalm of a Pair of Pumps .... 
David Farrow Goes A-Trancing .... 
The Ambitions of Jimmie Rew .... 
Old Man Gorrs and the Seventh Heaven . 

An Ode to Punctuation. 

The Manuscript of a Mangled Mat . 

The Tale of a Tragic Typo. 

The Reformation of Jupiter Watts . 


PACK 

1 

7 

17 

25 


. 32 


. 39 
. 45 
. 56 
. 63 
. 78 
. 87 
. 103 
. 105 
. 119 
. 126 


> 




Run o' the Hook 

▼ '▼ ▼' '▼ w ▼ ▼' ▼ ’T^ ^r " *r 


Ad.-Venturously Speaking .... 
How Printing Came to Lovely Coffin 
A Broadway Talk on Make-up 
The Isle o’ Woman. 


PAGE 

. 140 
. 143 
. 158 
. 165 


Dobbs and I Construct a Christmas Card . .180 






In the Way of Pictures 

FAGH 

“Thirteen Minutes Past Seven” . . . Frontispiece 

Every Ordinary Morning.6 

Under an Apple Tree . &.16 

David Farrow.64 

Old Man Gorrs.86 

He Leaned Over the Fence.118 

Three-Blast Barnaby.144 

“Now, Mister,” He Said.166 











Tales of the Print Shop 









The Straight of Things 

Or an Evening with 
an Average M . P. 

4 ^ 4 ^ 

As Some of the Red-Flag Boys 
Would Have Us Think 

TP OWARD the final curtain of a so-so session of 
business, Robert K. Maryland, chief dividend reaper 
of the Maryland Printing Company, dipped a pink 
and much-manicured hand into) the excess-profits 
compartment of the Maryland treasure chest and re¬ 
moved therefrom an enormous bundle of well-laun¬ 
dered high-calibered currency. 

Then he applied a listless finger to a silver push¬ 
button and produced a liveried chauffeur. 

A few swings of the pendulum later the maker of 
printing and profits immersed himself in the esthetic 
depths of a mammoth dozen-cylinder sedan and was 
wafted up Fifth Avenue to the Club of the Favored 
of Fortune. 

A highly upholstered footman assisted him to the 
plebeian curb, a full-regaliad doorman swung wide 

1 


2 


The Straight of Things 


the main portals for him, and an imported valet 
helped him out of the garments of commerce and into 
his open-faced clothes. 

Then an ornate butler emerged from a law-proof 
cellar and served him a thin glass or two of firmly 
prohibited nectar, which encouraged him to negoti¬ 
ate the dining salon and to commit a canvasback 
dinner de luxe. 

From the linen-spread altar of Epicurus he es¬ 
corted a two-dollar Havana into an adjoining suite 
for an hour of draw and another of balkline bil¬ 
liards, while discussing the boosting of prices and 
the still-further pruning of wages. 

Later he was annexed by the queen of the Mary¬ 
land home and rushed to their box at the opera. 

When the tenor had thundered his final finale and 
the echoes had learned to behave, the Marylands 
moved along to a brilliant cafe for a midnight por¬ 
tion of lobster and then breezed up the Way called 
Broad to the town place of theirs on the Drive. 

And just before parking himself in the precincts 
of sleep Robert K\ Maryland murmured: {< How 





3 


The Straight of Things 


sweet it is to be a business man and to live on the 
earnings of others.” 

As a Discouraged Printer or Two 
May Feel About the Matter 

Two complete circuits of the wall-clock after the 
Maryland payroll had departed for the twilight 
muffins, Bob Maryland, proprietor of the Maryland 
Job Printery, got lamely beneath his derby and con¬ 
signed himself to the subway. 

At an under-asphalt news-stand he reached an 
uncertain group of fingers into a shallow pocket 
and got reckless for a final edition. 

Presently a series of coaches roared in, and he ac¬ 
complished the purpose of all good subway battlers. 

After thirty-five minutes of vertical and rib-crush¬ 
ing anguish he climbed to the cobblestones above and 
alternated his oxfords towards the realm of the 
Maryland flat. 

He was met at the front-door sill by his partner in 
life, and an avalanche of Maryland hopefuls, and 
triumphantly led to the gala-day liver and onions. 





4 


The Straight of Things 


▼ ▼ 


At the finis of the feast he perpetrated the luxury 
of a seven-cent stogy while trying to figure out how 
to keep his presses running and the members of 
his force on the job. 

Then he consulted the family album and verified a 
composite hunch that the Marylands were scheduled 
for a bi-monthly trip to the movies. 

After ninety minutes at the neighborhood mosque 
of the screen the revellers returned to two months 
more of monotonous waiting and abstinence. 

But immediately prior to basking himself in slum¬ 
ber, Bob Maryland sighed and intoned: “Oh, if I’d 
only been born free and equal, instead of the head of 
a business.” 

• ••••• • 

Fortunately, however, the average printer-busi¬ 
ness man approximates neither such extreme. He is 
not so blase as some of the curbstone elocutionists 
so vociferously explain, nor yet so poorly adjusted 
as a few of his weaker-hearted contemporaries may 
be tempted to admit. 

In the words of a certain educator, “The average 
man is a little above the average.” So let us keep 





The Straight of Things 


▼ T T T^- T T ▼ 


w *r m v 


on thinking that the average master printer con¬ 
tinues to fill a more-than-ordinary position in society, 
and to experience his just share of happiness in life; 
and that the printer-employee does likewise; and 
that, after all, conditions are pretty promising in 
the industry. 






Every ordinary morning at four-thirty Henry would 
transfer his ample feet from below the red com¬ 
forts to a place beneath the kitchen table. 




























Launcelot and His Two Sons 


There once existed in a certain epitomized me¬ 
tropolis an embryonic follower of Gutenberg named 
Launcelot. 

Simultaneously there dwelt in that abridged muni¬ 
cipality an adolescent feminine called Sophronia. 

After the bumpkin of the euphonious cognomen 
had learned to pull a proof, wash a form and set a 
stickful of type, and how not to squander half a day 
in futile search for a paper stretcher or a quantity 
of black-face quads, the reigning sovereign of the 
Warwhoop announced that Launcelot had graduated 
from the office broom and at once should have a stick 
and galley of his very own. 

Glorious day for Launcelot. At last he had the 
chance to grasp his only real excuse for being. So¬ 
phronia was now within his inky reach. 

On one daring occasion he had had the magnificent 

crust to toss a copy of the Warwhoop on her father’s 

7 


8 


Launcelot and His Two Sons 




front porch before her very eyes. And as Sophro- 
nia had stooped to lift that, her very first epistle 
from D. Cupid’s pen, she had allowed her face to 
register a freckled showing of astonished pleasure. 
So Launcelot had grow r n warm again about the feet. 
And after that both young people had exchanged 
shy and shrimp-complexioned glances on crossing 
paths. 

But when Launcelot was graduated from the office 
broom, he at once determined that from that time 
forth he would be an important section of the 
scenery in Sophronia’s front parlor or pass away 
in the attempt. 

Accordingly, on the following Wednesday eve¬ 
ning, after donning his most jubilant scenery, and 
immersing himself in much bay rum, he seven-hun- 
dred-dollared up to Sophronia’s habitat. 

He won with a smile. 

Thereafter, supplemented with geraniums and 
gum drops, Launcelot went a-stepping each Sunday 
and Wednesday evening. 

And then things again resumed the even baritone 
of their way. 






Launcelot and His Two Sons 


9 


W’W ▼▼▼▼▼▼ «r rv ▼ -«r ^ v'v'r'v ^ r 

However, after Launcelot had ambled up the grav¬ 
eled walk to Sophronia’s front porch twice weekly 
for a trifle over nine years, his conscience informed 
him that he had helped his ideal’s father contract a 
kerosene bill the proportions of which demanded the 
ring-offering act. 

Inasmuch as Launcelot by that time was reigning 
sovereign of the Warwhoop, he felt that he was 
fairly qualified for matrimony. 

Sophronia fell for him. 

And so the printer-groom-to-be ran off some an¬ 
nouncements and invitations, the close friends of the 
contracting parties were pried away from as many 
presents, the reverend party of the third part pro¬ 
nounced the fatal words and bestowed five dollars’ 
worth of blessing, and the bride and bridegroom 
settled down to the hackneyed business of sneaking 
through life. 

• •••••# 

About two complete calendars after they had 
strolled to the Mendelssohn tune, there came into 
their home and lives a pair of vociferous male in¬ 
fants. 







10 


Launcelot and His Two Sons 


▼ ▼ yr y r-v-yr ▼ ▼ w w ▼ ▼ 

In the course of events said offspring were bap¬ 
tized respectively Marmaduke and Henry. 

In early life Marmaduke showed symptoms of be¬ 
coming a very devil with the ladies, while Henry’s 
face loomed up like a red lantern in a light fog 
every time some venturesome damsel gave him the 
once over. And it later developed that Marmaduke 
took to inhaling the little white cigars, and combing 
his hair straight back, and wearing trousers with a 
crease down each leg, while Henry, as befitted a 
common fellow, forswore the frivolous things and 
stuck close to nature. 

Both youths adorned the family hearthstone 
until, at the age of two-and-nineteen, Marmaduke 
decided it was time for him to seek the big burg in 
quest of legal tender and the wreath of bay. So 
one auspicious afternoon he swung aboard old Num¬ 
ber Three and waved a gay farewell to the elongated 
maples. 

Shortly after his arrival in the super-town, 
Marmaduke collaborated with a bevy of idle chap¬ 
pies in lolling round a fussy pocket-billiard estab¬ 
lishment. 






Launcelot and His Two Sons 


11 


After a few days and nights of such edifying 
company, our immature friend from the stubbles 
gathered the conviction that a kind fate had cut him 
out for society. 

Vanished from his mind were all thoughts of living 
by the perspiration of his classic brow. Nothing 
doing in the trade line for him, he decided, for a 
trade suggested time-clocks and callouses. 

He determined to eschew all jobs and situations 
and to concentrate his aim on positions. 

After strolling the thoroughfares for many days 
he secured a chance as a portrait solicitor. Later 
he annoyed a piano in a fashionable food empor¬ 
ium, and eventually became a floor-walker in a 
ladies’ furnishings palace. 

And then several years proceeded to fan them¬ 
selves beyond the ken of men. 

• •••••• 

While his expeditious twin was absorbing much 
knowledge a la drawing-room, Henry was pursuing 
the enlightening art of printing at the Warwhoop. 

Every ordinary morning at four-thirty Henry 
would transfer his ample feet from below the red 






12 Launcelot and His Two Sons 


comforts to a place beneath the kitchen table and 
at once destroy an eighteen-inch stack of flannel 
cakes. 

Soon thereafter he would hasten to the Warwhoop 
and get behind a mottled apron, and from then until 
the blowing of the curfew was very much indeed on 
the job. 

Before Henry took to printing, Launcelot had 
found it necessary to employ a full printer and a 
half, but Henry’s advent put an end to that neces¬ 
sity. 

Launcelot and Henry ran the Warwhoop. Al¬ 
though neither was exactly crippled from the weight 
of ready money, each managed to encompass three 
meals daily, and every third or fourth week their 
balance in the local bank was augmented by a green¬ 
back or so. 

Launcelot filled the two-ply job of editor and 
business manager, while Henry was just the errand 
boy and devil, the pressfeeder and pressman, the 
compositor and stoneman, the bindery girl and 
binder, the stockman and mailer, the advertising 





Launcelot and His Two Sons 


13 


man and proofreader, the office girl and bill collec¬ 
tor, and a few dozen other little things. 

On Sunday and Wednesday evenings, when the 
village coxcombs were calling on the rural damsels, 
Henry would waste his time in memorizing the dic¬ 
tionary, in studying trade journals, and in sleeping. 

And the same several years before referred to pro¬ 
ceeded to fan themselves beyond the ken of men. 

Then one day Sophronia—may the dear soul rest 
in peace!—shuffled off this mortal sphere. 

Shortly thereafter Launcelot had the bad taste 
to collide with a flock of typhoid germs; and a few 
days later they placed him beneath the lilies. 

When deceased’s will was explored, it was learned 
that Launcelot had left the Warwhoop to his two 
sons. 

Of course, Marmaduke surrendered floor-mean¬ 
dering and hurried home to take charge, for Henry 
in the pilot house was simply out of the interroga¬ 
tion. 

But Marmaduke failed to scintillate as the reign¬ 
ing sovereign of the Warwhoop . Week by week the 







14 


Launcelot and His Two Sons 


printing orders fell away, day by day the proverbial 
wolf became more impertinent, and hour by hour 
the coming of the sheriff with his little paper notice 
and big brass padlock became more imminent. 

At length took place a clandestine meeting of the 
Warwhoop’s creditors. 

In the well-heated course of the conclave, the 
salesman of a paper house announced that his com¬ 
pany would toss a life preserver to the Warwhoo-p 
if a change of pilots could be brought about. Other 
persons present were of similar opinions. So one 
balmy day an explanatory missive was projected 
through the front door of the Warwhoop. 

Henry perused the hieroglyphics, and at once 
resolved to act in the matter. 

And so it came to pass that Marmaduke, much to 
his richly upholstered disgust, was figuratively 
taken hold of by the magnificent slack of his elegant 
trousers and cozily consigned to the heap of rubbish 
to the rear of the office, while Henry—poor old 
homespun, small-town Henry—rolled up his ink- 
stained sleeves and tore into things. 







Launcelot and His Two Sons 


15 


▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ v • y r-^ r T’ T’rT' T T ’t ‘ 

And then things began to hum round the War- 

And in a short time the soft-hearted creditors 
began to get from Henry nicely printed orders for 
the kopecks. 

Then hour by hour the sheriff drew farther away, 
day by day the wolf became more wary, and week 
by week the balance in the bank grew healthier. 

Marmaduke now receives a pension for avoiding 
the Warwhoop , where he would just be in the way. 

And Henry, after many years of hard and faith¬ 
ful service, is now approaching the time when he can 
knock off work at eight o’clock on Wednesday eve¬ 
nings to call on Arabella Smudge, his heart’s desire. 








Under an apple tree reclined the mortal, with a best 
seller in his hand and a smile on his face. 













Some Inside Information 



everybody on the animated side of a 


sarcophagus is aware that the post-war price of pa¬ 
per was higher than the Woolworth Building. Many 
reasons for that exalted condition have been adver¬ 
tised, but all have been camouflages. I hadn’t in¬ 
tended to explain the real cause, and up to this 
time have kept the facts below my wavy black tou¬ 
pee. But when my cerebral department registers 
the truth that all persons, from the misunderstood 
and unappreciated chappy who writes home often 
for assistance, to his majesty the editor and pub¬ 
lisher, were earnestly involved in the matter, I be¬ 
come convinced that I should circulate a little stock 
in my secret and take the public into partnership. 
So here’s why the post-war price of paper was so 
elevated. 

More than a few years ago the three Fates— 
Clotho and Lachesis and Atropos—happened to be 
somewhere in Colorado when they suddenly re¬ 
called that the season was about to open at Newport. 


17 



18 


Some Inside Information 


▼ ▼▼▼▼▼▼▼ ▼▼ ■r ▼▼ v w* 

As it would never, never do for those three dear 
girls to be absent on such an occasion, the } 7 forth¬ 
with instituted a marathon toward the habitat of 
the promenade costumer and the staff photogra¬ 
pher. 

Clotho, the youngest of the trio, was well ahead 
when the sprinters reached Central Iowa, and was 
dissipating in the thought that the treats would be 
on the other two, when she tripped and fell over the 
buckle of the Corn Belt. 

Her sense of injury was not appreciably lessened 
by observing near the site of her discomfiture a 
smiling mortal—a country printer. Under an apple 
tree reclined the mortal, with a best seller in his 
hand and an air about him like that of the clever 
husband who has just convinced his wife that he must 
work until late at the office. 

“Girls,” groaned Clotho, as her sisters came up, 
“the bets are all off. It’ll have to be ‘pay as you 
enter’ for each of us at the tea room when we arrive. 
I feel like a pacifist who has just been admonished 
with a helping of shrapnel. And right here before us 






Some Inside Information 19 

▼ T T T T T T T' T T ▼ T T T ▼ TT T T" T^ry ▼ T T T - r V^ 

% 

lies a mere mortal with the nerve to appear happy 
while one of the Destinies is in need of witch hazel. 
What should we do to him, girls?” 

“He deserves to be dropped into love,” announced 
Lachesis. 

“Even worse than that,” declared Atropos. 
“Let’s jolly the poor fish into thinking he can write.” 

“Fair enough!” cried Clotho and Lachesis to¬ 
gether. 

And then the dear girls selected a hardy writing 
germ from their traveling kit and made a cunning 
little red spot on the country printer’s right wrist. 

• ••••••• 

Whereas the party last referred to had been a reg¬ 
ular human being upon distributing himself above 
the dandelions to assimilate the new romance, upon 
finishing his literary repast he discovered that his 
great desire in life was to hear his name lisped in 
the same sentence with the name of Shakespeare. 

With the artistic-temperament virus rapidly com¬ 
municating itself to the most rural outposts of his 
physique, the inspired one acquired a dreamy look 




20 Some Inside Information 

T"T~ T- T ' T T T T T~T' , T~T'T'r -T T T T T T ▼ V V ’’T T T T T ▼ T VTTT TT'yf * *' 

and frayed habiliments, a typewriter and an acre of 
paper, a poor credit rating from the local gas com¬ 
pany, and the habit of eating irregularly. 

Soon he became one of Uncle Sam’s best postage 
customers. Manuscript after manuscript left his 
home and hopes for the office of the Cruel Editor in 
the City of Frigid Doorbells. 

As return postage always was enclosed and as 
all of the rejection senders in the outer office lived 
in heated flats and so were uninterested in the ac¬ 
quisition of fuel, each literary gem at length found 
its way back to the inspired one. 

The scampering years witnessed room after room 
of his home become filled with rejection slips and 
rejected masterpieces, until, at last, with the very 
kitchen crammed from floor to ceiling, he w T as forced 
to betake himself and his unflagging energy out be¬ 
neath the fatal apple tree. 

• ••••••• 

In midsummer of 1914, the Fate girls were stag¬ 
ing another little threesome jaunt, from Syracuse 
to Omaha. Clotho, as usual, w r as ahead. So sure 
of annexing the ice cream soda was she that she 




Some Inside Information 21 

yrvvv'vwT-vvw Tvv'r-vvTw'rirT'w'ryr-w w w t r tt ttt t ^ 

decided to rest awhile in Central Iowa and let her 
sisters catch up. She seated herself on the buckle 
of the Corn Belt and waited. 

While trying to decide whether to permit Ajax 
to escort her to the next dance on Mount Olympus, 
or to humble Diana of the Moonbeams by vamping 
young Mercury from her for that event, Clotho’s 
day dream was dissipated by the sound of clicking 
typewriter keys. 

A slight turn of her mythological neck showed her 
the inspired one pegging away at his battered ma¬ 
chine just as though he really had a chance. Another 
twist and she beheld his accumulated musings exud¬ 
ing from the doors and windows of his once-was 
home. 

The look of grief on the country printer’s face, 
coupled with her humanizing thoughts that she was 
bound to win the race, and that both Ajax and Mer¬ 
cury were simply wild about her, caused Clotho to 
become solicitous concerning the mortal’s welfare. 
She decided he had suffered quite enough; that it 
was now up to her to have a heart. 




22 Some Inside Information 

T T T ' T T T T T T T ' T- yT 1 T ' r T T ■r T T ▼ T T T ' T ▼ T T T T T T f T T 1 T r T" 

When Lachesis and Atropos arrived and saw how 
things stood, both agreed that their revenge was 
quite complete, and that the only decent thing for 
them to do was to give the poor fish another chance. 

“Girls,” declared Lachesis, with emphasis, “that 
brother is there! The old boy has turned out more 
rejection winners since we started him wrong than 
a dozen typists could have done in twice the time. 
He wins the galvanized pork chops and the fur-lined 
fountain pen. 

“Of course we could never get his stuff published, 
girls; but why couldn’t we raise the price of paper 
and let him sell his musings by the pound?” 

“But how’ll we raise the price of paper?” asked 
Atropos. “Paper is an international commodity. 
Nothing short of a universal shake-up could turn the 
trick. To assist one person, should we cause the 
whole w r orld to become heated?” 

“But you seem to forget,” interrupted Clotho, 
“that Ralph Waldo Emerson composed an essay on 
compensation and that it’s up to us to act accord¬ 
ingly. And speaking of heat reminds me that I’m 




Some Inside Information 23 

▼ T'T'TTTTTT TTTT T T'y T T T TT T' T 'T T Tr 'Y T ' T T ▼'T'T'T'T ' T'fT'T' 

not at all pleased with our present janitor service. 
My boudoir hasn’t been properly heated for the last 
five winters. But Satan’s contract will expire shortly 
and then we’ll have a chance to appoint some one 
that really knows his trade, to the foremanship over 
the firing crew in Hades.” 

“Ah!” exclaimed Lachesis, breathlessly, “the 
problem is solved. To raise the price of paper, 
there should be a great world cataclysm. We need 
a new foreman for Hades and there’s only one man 
for the place. To secure that man we should make 
him responsible for the cataclysm. War is such a 
cataclysm and that man is anxious for war. In fact, 
he’s been plotting rough stuff for years. Let’s jolly 
Kaiser Bill into thinking he can whip the world and 
we’ll soon have a head stoker in Hades that will make 
Old Nick look like a slacker.” 

• ••••••• 

The fireworks started early in August of that year. 
Before long the price of paper went up and forced 
the Cruel Editor out of his swivel chair. Soon the 
inspired one found himself the owner of a houseful of 



24 Some Inside Information 

^r^ y ' T ▼ T T T T T T T T ' T T 'T T ▼" r T’T"’f^r T"T T ▼ T T T T T ▼ , T > T i 

marketable merchandise. And out of sheer goodness 
of heart he at once appointed the C. E. chief truck 
driver for the new concern. 

The whilom country printer now plows up the lo¬ 
cal macadam daily in his super-twelve. He is known 
to everybody round the town as the caliph of the 
paper trade. And these things have come to pass 
because the Fate girls wished to prove once again 
that Mr. Emerson was thinking straight when he 
composed that essay on compensation, and because 
those same dear girls wanted a real foreman for 
Hades. 





Hubert Malnutritions Clingstone 

Printer 


A. RRIVED a time when Old Man Clingstone waxed 
unappreciative of the privilege of donating three 
squares daily to his eldest male offspring, Hubert 
Malnutritious Clingstone. 

For seventeen married years Clingstone the ma¬ 
ture had uncomplainingly nightly limped home with 
the bacon. 

Then one resplendent day his cranium was pene¬ 
trated by an inspiration that it might be a good idea 
for his second edition to start something for himself 
along the porcine-slab-providing line. 

Accordingly, one fateful twilight the dodger of 
the Clingstone creditors beckoned his heir aside and 
advised him that it was time for said reprint to re¬ 
move the pristine real estate of Mossback from be¬ 
neath his ample feet and to peregrinate out into the 
frigid and tyrannical marts of trade in quest of pub¬ 
lic plaudits and the rhino. . 

25 


26 Hubert Malnutritious Clingstone 


▼ '▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ •w-^r- y r^r ▼' ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ w ▼" 

So it was finally fixed that Hubert M. should aban¬ 
don the Clingstone hearth and migrate to Hugeville 
to try his luck in the game of life. 

When our corn-fed hero deposited his sylvan frame 
on the depot platform in the corpulent hamlet, Prov¬ 
idence, that self-elected looker-after the unsophisti¬ 
cated, put her invisible main arm about his rural 
waist, took his unmanicured right bread-winner in her 
ethereal left, and gaily waltzed with him to the 
treadmill conducted by Jimpson Jones, Printer. 

Jimpson Jones was not merely a printer. He was 
a regular fourteen-karat, eight-cylinder, long-may- 
he-wave Printer! In other words, Jimpson Jones 
was a Business Man. And in addition to that, he 
was strong for the proposition that the aim of the 
young idea should be to get ahead, not merely to get 
by, in his profession. 

As the ink-befreckled longitude of the boss of the 
shop projected itself through the swinging doors 
which divorced the Jones workrooms from the front 
office, Providence whispered a few kind words into 
Hubert M.’s sufficient ear, gave him a parting com¬ 
radely slap on his unsophisticated back, and then 





Hubert Malnutritions Clingstone 27 


cruelly, but just as such a fickle thing as Providence 
has a perfect right to do, abandoned her whilom 
protege to his typographic fate and proceeded on 
her astral way. 

When Hubert M. had been given the critical gaze 
and the verbal third degree, he was notified to get 
from within his superfluous apparel, whereupon a 
broom was placed in his cherubic grasp and he was 
introduced to a composing-room floor which might 
have been swept once in the prehistoric past, but 
which did not look it. 

*••••••• 

After Father Time, Creation’s most proficient dis¬ 
tributor, had lifted fifteen years from the form of 
existence and thrown them into the case of eternity, 
Hubert Malnutritious decided he had punched the 
Jones time-clock long enough and was ready to steer 
his own little runabout of business along the 
thoroughfares of commerce. 

By that time Hubert M. was a first-water typo. 
Over and above the fact that his brother-workers 
knew him as a bona-fide magician of the type case, 
on more than one occasion handiwork of his had 






28 Hubert Malnutritions Clingstone 




been referred to with favor by the leading printing 
journals. And because of the amplitude of the 
bundle of emolument which he pulled down weekly, 
he was listed by the working members of Hugeville’s 
printing fraternity as the fellow who put the fee in 
typography. 

Yet Hubert M. was not content. Because of too- 
accustomed imbibition, a mere draught from the 
goblet of prosperity no longer sufficed to quench 
his appetite for success, and he longed to recline 
beneath the very spigot in the cask of affluence. The 
smooth sailing he had had as a journeyman had 
given him the thought that he was wasting his time 
as a compositor, when, just as well as not, he might 
become the plutocratic owner of a printing establish¬ 
ment. 

He began to dream of being motored to his office 
in the morning, of lolling over full-course lunches at 
the big cafes at noon, and of spending many hours 
daily on the links. 

Verily, Hubert M. had become absorbed in going 
into business. 





Hubert Malnutritions Clingstone 29 

T ▼ T TT T ▼ ▼ ▼ T V T T ▼ T T ▼ ▼ T T-V W" T" V~^T^-W’"V "T‘'V Vr ? ! 

He leased a gorgeous place on one of Hugeville’s 
clamorous highways, and, after installing several me¬ 
chanical aids to fine printing, signing up a full crew 
of pedigreed workers, arranging with the local bank 
to construct an addition to accommodate the ava¬ 
lanche of iron men he thought he had a date with, he 
nonchalantly settled down to keep a pre-arranged 
appointment with Madame Fortune. 

But it later developed that, through a slight over¬ 
sight on her part, Hubert M.’s patronymic had not 
been made of record in that lady’s note-book. 

In the first place, he was not exactly deluged with 
orders, and in the other places, failed to stack up 
any surplus cash on the few jobs done. 

He soon learned that an A-l typo is not nec¬ 
essarily a blue-ribbon business manager. 

Things went from worse to very much worse than 
that. 

Instead of bringing home the loving cups for ex¬ 
pert driving, as he had planned to do, he soon dis¬ 
covered that the gas tank of his little auto of busi¬ 
ness had sprung a leak which threatened to leave 




30 Hubert Malnutritions Clingstone 


him a hopeless loser in the road race of achievement. 
And at the end of his fifth month in the world of 
barter and trade he was willing to confess that as 
the big chief of a printing establishment, he was a 
wrong-font matrix in the magazine of success. 

However, just as the chloroform was being ap¬ 
plied to his venture, Hubert M. received a visit from 
Jimpson Jones of hallowed memory. 

Simply because Jones was a real human being and 
so would rather throw a life-line than apply a har¬ 
poon, he donated a few galleys of sound advice. 

And Hubert M. listened with a broad ear. 

As a result of the confab, our hero carted his 
equipment to a much more condensed location on one 
of Hugeville’s lesser by-paths, most of his princely 
furnishings were placed on the auction block, and he 
himself descended from the costly pedestal of inac¬ 
tivity to re-enter the ranks of industry. 

Incidentally, he applied himself to the study of 
correct estimating, subscribed for several trade jour¬ 
nals, and began a systematic campaign of advertis¬ 
ing. 





Hubert Malnutritions Clingstone 31 


▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ‘v-y r ^ ^ v ▼ vw^vvvwwvvvvww m 

At present Hubert M. is entered once again in the 
road race of achievement. To be sure, his runabout 
is somewhat battered and unpicturesque, but it ne¬ 
gotiates the rough spots with a will. In being over¬ 
hauled in the garage of retrenchment, it gained in 
motive power what it lost in artistic appearance. 

Hubert Malnutritious still catches an occasional 
glimpse of the visions which beckoned him to busi¬ 
ness. But he is wise to the fact that those flashes 
are only mirages, and aware that the soft life is sel¬ 
dom realized until many miles have been made over 
the rocky road of endeavor. 

He is now a strong believer in the notion that suc¬ 
cess in business may be brought about with much 
more sureness and dispatch by a one-horse begin¬ 
ning and conscientious application than by a gi¬ 
gantic splash of ostentatious color and supine com¬ 
placence. 





What’s the Use of Dyingl 

4 ^ 4 ^ 

AmID the fragrance of new-mown printers’ ink 
and to the tune of a lively spring song being whistled 
by the new office devil, Justa Bidder the printer re¬ 
clined on a bench in the rear of his shop fondly and 
poetically dying. 

“James,” said the printer to the boy, “please stroll 
round to ten of the newest and cheapest doctors in 
town and assure them that I’m dying. Ask them 
to submit at their leisure estimates of charges for 
attention. Explain that I consider this job some¬ 
what inconsequential and not requiring their best 
efforts; that a minimum of service will be highly ac¬ 
ceptable if the price is low enough. 

“Should it be convenient for them to respond 
soon, you might wait and bring their bids back with 
you.” 

The office devil wandered from the place and left 
the shop to Justa and the roaches. 

Several hours later the apprentice strolled back. 

He had the desired information—jottings of his own 

32 


What's the Use of Dying? 


33 


on a sheet of paper. He handed the sheet to the 
dying printer. 

Justa Bidder inspected the list with some interest. 
The charges of eight doctors were about the same. 
However, Dr. Drury, the highest, considered the job 
worth two dollars and a quarter if the patient 
wished a quiet and quick passing; while Alonzo 
Caduceus McGurgle, M. D., the lowest, thought that 
an acceptable sort of death could be managed for 
a fee of ninety cents. 

“But, James,” said the dying printer, “I don’t 
see the name of young Dr. Jackson on this list. He 
just started up about a month ago, and knows prac¬ 
tically nothing of medicine; but people say he’s 
very cheap. Why didn’t you call on young Dr. 
Jackson?” 

“I gave that bird’s doorbell a twist,” yawned the 
devil, “and his aunt came and stood on the porch. 
‘Where’s the doc?’ I asked. ‘If you mean my nephew, 
Dr. Jackson,’ said the old lady, ‘he’s not in just now. 
I have a slight headache today and the doctor’s 
gone to fetch a physician.’ ” 






34 


What's the Use of Dying? 


^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ y V ^ w , r , r , r , www , r .^^ wwww w - w r 

“Very well,” said Justa Bidder; “then I’ll do with¬ 
out a doctor. Please stroll round to ten of the new¬ 
est and cheapest undertakers in town and assure 
them that I’m as good as dead. Ask them to submit 
at their leisure estimates of charges for attention. 
Tell ’em I consider this job somewhat inconsequen¬ 
tial and not requiring their best efforts; that a mini¬ 
mum of service will be highly acceptable if the price 
is low enough. 

“Should it be convenient for them to respond soon, 
you might wait and bring their bids back with you.” 

The apprentice hurried slowly from the place of 
death and printers’ ink. 

At the end of an extended stay the printing tyro 
calmly reappeared. He possessed what he had gone 
in search of—a list of names and signatures. He 
surrendered the information to the expiring typog¬ 
rapher. 

Justa Bidder eyed the tabular display somew T hat 
interestedly. The prices of all but two of the under¬ 
takers were nearly identical. However, F. Martin, 
the highest bidder, thought the task should involve 
the expenditure of two hundred dollars; while Aman- 





What's the Use of Dying? 


35 


uensa Diogenes Purple, the lowest, was willing to 
handle the case for a third of that, provided the 
subject would postpone dying for a day or two and 
would expire in a smiling pose that would require 
but little readjustment. 

“James,” said the dying printer, “you’ve missed 
a person I particularly wanted you to visit. The 
name of Undertaker Squires isn’t here. Folks say 
Squires doesn’t know much about his business, but 
all agree that he’s very low priced. Why didn’t you 
see Squires?” 

“I didn’t overlook that bird,” sighed the appren¬ 
tice. “When I slipped into his parlor, nobody was 
there but the janitor. ‘Where do you keep it hid?’ 
said I. ‘If you’re trying to get fresh about the boss,’ 
came back that wise one, ‘he’s out. A water span¬ 
iel he thought quite a bit of got killed this after¬ 
noon and Mr. Squires has just taken its body over 
to a respectable undertaking place.’ ” 

“By Gutenberg!” exclaimed the dying man of 
type, assuming a sitting posture on the bench. “I’ve 
a good notion not to die after all.” 





36 


Wliat's the Use of Dying? 

r TTr T TT TTT TT T T T T TT TT TT TTV T T T TTTT T TT T T T WW 

“I can’t see how you ever got the idea in the first 
place,” yawned the devil. “There can’t be much per¬ 
sonal sport in a thing like that, and, besides, you 
wouldn’t leave enough change behind to make the 
thing of interest to your relatives.” 

“But I’d reached a point where it was easier to 
die than to live,” said the printer. “I’d been spend¬ 
ing nearly all my time in figuring on work and sub¬ 
mitting bids. Printing orders had a way of passing 
me by. What was the use of trying to beat that 
combination? Not a bit. So I simply quit trying, 
and decided to call for a few cheap estimates my¬ 
self.” 

“Mr. Bidder,” said the devil, with solicitude, “you 
printers mean well, but you’ve made a mighty false 
start. You typos have permitted the public to form 
a very foolish habit. You’ve been slashing each 
other’s adam’s-apples so long that outsiders have 
just naturally acquired the estimate affliction. 
About six people out of every half dozen regard 
printing as the one thing never to be purchased out¬ 
right. When some particular fellow is in need of per¬ 
sonal furnishings, he walks into the nearest high- 




37 


What’s the Use of Dying? 

■r t ■ yr^ ’■v' v ▼ ▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼ y r m ^ r ^ r m w ▼ ^ ^r* 

class toggery shop and orders perhaps forty dollars’ 
worth of silk shirts and ten dollars’ worth of neckties 
without much more than saying, ‘Wrap ’em up.’ But 
when that same brother has thirty-five cents’ worth 
of printing to be done, he kindly looks through a 
directory to see which ten printers deserve to figure 
on the job. 

“Now, one good printer with the right kind of 
devil on his staff could put the brakes to this thing 
locally. If you’d follow some advice from the brother 
now speaking, you could soon spread the oleo extra 
thick on your daily waffles, and your wife could af¬ 
ford to snub her nicest lady friends.” 

“I’ll listen to anything,” declared the reviving 
printer. 

“Then,” resumed the inspired oracle, “gather this 
in. Cut out the bidding. Get people away from the 
habit of asking for estimates on every piece of print¬ 
ing to be done. If they were dying, they wouldn’t 
ask the doctor or the undertaker for bids; and yet 
nearly all of their printing plays a vital part in the 
life of their business. Get ’em to have confidence in 
you and your product. Educate ’em to forget price 




38 


What's the Use of Dying? 


and remember quality. Organize. Give ’em the best 
they can possibly get—and hold out for the right 
price. The other things will soon adjust themselves.” 





How Printer Jenkins 
Solved the Problem 


M\ dear,” remarked Hezekiah Alfred Jenkins, 
master printer, settling himself in the plush-covered 
rocker beside the glowing base-burner in the Jenkins 
front room, one haughty winter evening, and sternly 
regarding his better half, seated opposite, “it’s not 
right, the way things have been going lately, and it’s 
up to us to call a halt!” 

Mrs. Octavia Alexandrina Boggs-Jenkins of the 
Mossback Boggses glanced across at her husband. 
A single hasty reading of his barometric features 
apprised her that a verbal storm was brewing which 
threatened to blow the good ship Peace from its 
shelter in the harbor of love, out upon the stormy 
sea of matrimony, and that it was high time for her 
to shorten sail and to drop both anchors at once. 

Besides being the proprietor of a printery, Heze¬ 
kiah Alfred Jenkins was the owner in fee simple of 

39 


40 Printer Jenkins Solved the Problem 


seven non-skid forehead wrinkles and forty-nine gray 
hairs. Whenever he was called on to address the 
Ladies’ Social Uplift Society, or planned to take in 
a burlesque show at Hugeville, he was very sure to 
iron out his brow and to comb the forty-nine grays 
under; but when, on Independence Day, he declaimed 
to the tolerant townfolk on the ever-new though 
sleep-provoking subject of “Liberty,” or when 
troubles pressed upon him, he permitted the seven 
non-skidders to appear strictly on the job and the 
forty-nine silver strands to show themselves in all 
their glory. 

So Mrs. Octavia Alexandrina Boggs-Jenkins of 
the Mossback Boggses was not wholly at fault in 
suspecting a mental tempest on the part of her hus¬ 
band that evening, for as she gazed across the room 
at him the sterling threads were in conspicuous evi¬ 
dence, and the wrinkles were assembled in severe con¬ 
vention just above the bridge of his nose. 

“My dear,” repeated Hezekiah Alfred, “it’s not 
right, the way things have been going lately, and it’s 
up to us to call a halt! 





Printer Jenkins Solved the Problem 41 


“Every month, it seems, we have a cash balance 
left after all shop and home bills have been paid, 
and our savings account is growing larger right 
along. 

“If those things were allowed to continue, we’d 
spend our declining years in ease, and, of course, 
such a thing would never do. As you know, we’ve 
been planning for years on ending our days at the 
poor farm. 

“And just look at the comforts of life we now 
enjoy. What right have we to own such a cozy 
home as this on such a frosty winter evening? And 
what right to possess a good overcoat apiece, with 
plenty of food in the pantry and coal in the cellar? 
And what right have I to be sitting here taking it 
easy after working only twelve hours today? 

“When you consented to marry me, you knew that 
a life of frugality lay ahead. When you gave up 
Jim Snooks to become Mrs. Boggs-Jenkins of the 
Mossback Boggses you realized that you were making 
a big financial sacrifice. You were aware that being 
the wife of a printer would be a very hard task, be- 





42 Printer Jenkins Solved the Problem 


cause printers are not in business to make money, 
but to cut prices. 

“As I said before, our savings account is growing 
larger right along, and such a thing will never do. 
Soon people will begin to think we consider ourselves 
just as good as other folks, and we’ve no earthly 
right to such airs. I tell you it’s up to us to call 
a halt! 

“Nowadays, when the high cost of living is even 
higher, it would be unfair to my customers to charge 
them just as much for printing as I used to charge. 
The price of other things has soared so high that 
folks can’t afford to pay as much as formerly for 
printing. So it’s up to us to cut the price. 

y getting up a little earlier each morning and 
working a little later each night, and by eating a 
little less and having a smaller fire in the shop stove 
each day, I ought to be able to decrease the price 
on nearly every job I turn out. Surely, the present 
state of things will never do, for at this time we are 
actually making a little profit on almost every bit 
of w r ork done. It’s up to us to call a halt!” 





Printer Jenkins Solved the Problem 43 


Mrs. Octavia Alexandrina Boggs-Jenkins of the 
Mossback Boggses regarded the oracle with a 
martyr-like gaze. “No doubt you are right, my 
dear H. Alfred; no doubt you are right. We have 
been enjoying too many worldly comforts lately. 
Just think of it! The hat and tie you wear to church 
on Sundays are less than three years old, and the 
bonnet and shawl I wear to the Social Uplift won’t 
be five till Easter-time. With everything else cost¬ 
ing so much at present, it doesn't seem quite fair to 
charge just as much as usual for printing, and I 
think you ought to cut your prices. It is up to us 
to call a halt!” 

Several moments of chaste stillness occupied the 
front room of the Jenkins home. Then Hezekiah Al¬ 
fred seemed to get an inspiration. 

“My dear,” he ejaculated, “why not begin right 
now to economize! By retiring right away we can 
save the kerosene in the lamp, and stretch out our 
coal supply. There’s always a way for a fellow to 
cut his prices, if he searches hard enough and long 
enough to find it!” 






44 Printer Jenkins Solved the Problem 


And so, after Hezekiah Alfred Jenkins had banked 
the fire, Mrs. Octavia Alexandrina Boggs-Jenkins of 
the Mossback Boggses heroically extinguished the 
lamp, and they retired for the night. 

Hezekiah Alfred, lulled by the beatific thought that 
he was an unappreciated benefactor of mankind, 
slept the undisturbed sleep of the martyr, but the 
slumber of Octavia Alexandrina was fitful and in¬ 
complete. Although she was well grounded in loy¬ 
alty to and love for her typographic spouse, she 
found it a trifle difficult to repress a sigh of regret 
when she awoke, in the wee hours of the morning, 
from a blissful dream in which she had moved as the 
consort of Jim Snooks, who had exceeded the most 
sanguine expectations of his friends by having 
mounted the ladder of success until at last he had 
become the driver of a laundry wagon, and she had 
found it no longer necessary to deny herself the 
comforts of life that her husband might trim his 
prices. 






Platen <% Junk 
Master Typographers 

A. WAY back in the superannuated days which 
squandered themselves considerably prior to the ad¬ 
vent of the subway, appendicitis and the high cost 
of living, a certain peripatetic member of the phi¬ 
losophers’ union once paged a multitude of the un¬ 
employed to gather in closely, and exploited a sec¬ 
tion of verbal erudition to the end that infinitesimal 
objects oftentimes hold the reins of titanic ones. 
And when the antiquated savant enunciated this 
diegesis he certainly knew whereof he articulated. 

Although, ordinarily, it might loom up a trifle 
startling that such a modest machine as a cotton um¬ 
brella should be responsible for the composition of 
a scintillating clief d'ceuvre in the meadow of liter¬ 
ature, in the calcium of the preceding aphorism it 
should not appear unduly extraordinary that a 
simple cloth rain-avoider should be the corpus de¬ 
licti for the inditing of this precise and scholarly 
chronicle of the commercial career of Platen & Junk, 
Master Typographers. 


45 


46 


Platen 8% Junk 






Time was when Jehosophat Platen w T as the humble 
valet of a string of jobbers in the rush-room of the 
Weekly Whistle , and Lohengrin W. Junk just a 
worker with types in the printing factory of Trim¬ 
ming & Struggling; but that was before the Grim 
Reaper decided to try out a modern efficiency sys¬ 
tem guaranteed to execute a duet of fowls with a 
single rock—which introduces into the matter the 
aforementioned portentous aqua-shield. 

One lachrymose evening in the month of showers 
the paterfamilias of the Platen clan, upon emanat¬ 
ing from the Junk domicile, where he had just in¬ 
dulged in a rubber at authors, forgot to collect his 
rain-avoider and so was permitted to totter an am¬ 
phibious way homeward. And sudden pneumonia 
got his number. A little later in the night the patri¬ 
arch of the Junk household, under the tutelary in¬ 
fluence of the requisitioned moisture-deflector, es¬ 
sayed to negotiate the corner grocery. The com¬ 
mandeered instrument frustrated the descending 
dampness, but discounted the power of vision. And a 
hastening motor truck put the sign on him.- 




47 


Platen § Junk 


Whereupon the Implacable Thresher promulgated 
a polysyllabic session of sardonic cachinnation and 
decided to install the new system. 

And so it came to pass that, after a brace of pine 
overcoats and a pair of commemorative obelisks had 
been settled for, and a lot of crimson tape explored, 
Jehosophat Platen and Lohengrin W. Junk each 
came into the lustrous possession of quite a quantity 
of king’s confetti. 

Inasmuch as there has long existed a degree of 
italicized incompatibility between the state of vassal- 
age and abruptly reinforced exchequer, Jehosophat 
Platen, upon tumbling into his allotment of the root 
of evil, at once prophesied that the mansard of the 
Weekly Whistle should obstruct his view of the stellar 
depths nevermore. And Lohengrin W. Junk, ren¬ 
dered buoyantly optimistic by coming into personal 
contact with such a turgid spiral of miser’s delight, 
immediately cloistered his eye-shade and pica-gauge 
and job-stick within his apron, removed his package 
of fine-cut from behind the nonpareil-slug rack, and 
instigated an individual hegira permanently away 





48 


Platen § Junk 


from the composing-room of Trimming & Struggling. 

Before many days had romped into oblivion, Je- 
hosophat and Lohengrin W. collided vis-a-vis and 
staged a parley. And when it came time for the 
gavel to curfew adjournment it had been planned to 
amalgamate their efforts and rhino and to gallop 
into the tournament of business under the oriflamme 
of Platen & Junk, Master Typographers. 

The diminutive printery which they dedicated to 
Hugeville proved a bell-ringer from the very begin¬ 
ning. From the initial crack of the whip, their little 
old print mill began to grind out a comfortable grist 
of typographic orders. Jehosophat and Lohengrin 
W. went to it with a rush. They applied their shoul¬ 
ders so emphatically and persistently to the wheel 
of industry that the consequent clangor of progress 
soon attracted the attention of the nomadic god of 
gain. That welcome immortal eventually stepped 
from his runabout at their threshold and strolled 
inside to inspect things. The rapidly rotating 
mechanism within exerted such a mesmeric spell on 
their gilded guest that he found it impossible to 
leave. So he ran his speed-wagon into the back 





49 


Platen Junk 

' ww w vwv ▼ ttt ▼■■^r- V «r ▼ 

yard, sent for his gossamer trunk, and engaged ac¬ 
commodations for an indefinite semi-colon. Verily, 
the yet-to-come looked beautifully velvety for Jeho- 
sophat and Lohengrin W. 

However, one lackadaisical day Lohengrin W. 
esoterically removed his shoulder. The resultant 
sensation was celestial; and a beagle of bliss ran a 
rabbit of rapture along the entire octave of his spinal 
column when he observed that his escapade seemed to 
encourage no dilatoriness whatever on the part of the 
game old wheel. Next day the experiment was do¬ 
nated another sequestered try-out, and again the 
test tube registered everything lovely—the archaic 
disk continued to revolve according to its regular 
schedule and still held the lethargic stare of the en¬ 
thralled deity. 

Thus it was that Lohengrin W. conceived the ex¬ 
pensive philosophy that personal attention to busi¬ 
ness was needlessly superfluous if one happened to 
possess a plodding paddling partner. He began to 
stall ingenuously. His matutinal, post-prandial and 
nocturnal hours were studiously devoted to profes¬ 
sional indifference. And so, while Jehosophat was 




50 


Platen Junk 


pulling the lever of a jobber in the pressroom, Lo¬ 
hengrin W. was pulling the levers of a gasoline char¬ 
iot along beckoning boulevards; while the former 
was setting type in the display alley, the latter was 
setting a pace for live ones in a nearby bowling alley, 
and while the fellow with the penchant for conscien¬ 
tious toil was sewing books and pamphlets in the 
bindery, the chap of the I-should-feel-concerned no¬ 
tions was otherwise sowing a voluminous crop of 
wild oats on particularly sterile terra firma. 

The gigantic portion of work and worry which 
Jehosophat was made to suffer was far from counter¬ 
balanced by the pigmy antidote of help which he 
received, so he at length found it necessary to dis- 
inhabit the printery and to occupy a room in an 
adjacent sanatorium. 

Said transfer of the physical, mental and spirit¬ 
ual confines of his valetudinarian colleague precip¬ 
itated a deluge of ice water on the state of mercan¬ 
tile coma which for some time past had presided over 
Lohengrin W. He awoke from his siesta of folly to 
find that the business wheels almost had ceased to 
journey, and to learn that their erstwhile languid 







51 


Platen S$ Junk 

▼ ▼ * * "T~T^r "▼ "▼ ▼ t v ▼ tr '•r 'yr-v v ^ «r vt - t *r 

visitor had repacked and removed his chimerical 
portmanteau and was cranking his runabout pre¬ 
liminary to starting on a joy ride. 

Lohengrin W. at once notified himself that if a 
certain little printery in Hugeville was to be re¬ 
deemed from the pawn-shop of neglect, something 
strenuous must be done without delay. Lohengrin 
W. was a sportsman. Consequently, he soon decided 
there was much more sport in joining the firing line 
and retaining a half interest in a winning business 
than in joining the bread-line and retaining a 
grudge against humanity. He threw off the stupor 
of stupidity and pulled on the gauntlets of gladiato¬ 
rial gluttony. Bedecked cap-a-pie with the invulner¬ 
able armor of resolve, he elevated from the dust of 
the financial arena the trampled and tattered stand¬ 
ard of their partnership, brandished the excalibur 
of zealous determination, and challenged the forces 
of failure to fight for the honor of Platen & Junk, 
Master Typographers. 

When the Furies saw that Lohengrin W. was in 
earnest they brushed the chips from their shoulders 
and took to cover. And soon things began to 




52 


Platen Junh 

V T T T T T V T' T' ^TT-V T T TTTTTTTTVTVT T T' T T 'T'T T T ' T T T r 

prance within the little printery. The wheel of in¬ 
dustry gradually gained momentum, the clangor of 
progress re-established itself, and the mechanism of 
commercial endeavor began to hum a siren’s song 
which fell with a peculiar poignancy on the fantas¬ 
tic ear of the restless god of gain. Finally the coax¬ 
ing cadence became so enticing that the resplen¬ 
dent immortal could resist no longer, so once again 
he toted in his utopian impedimenta, unpacked, and 
slipped into his smoking jacket. 

But now it was Jehosophat’s turn to frivol. Lux¬ 
urious lolling is a hatcher of unique sophisms. While 
his convalescing shoulders caressed the spotless 
linen at the therapeutic parlor he indulged in a ses¬ 
sion of fallacious cerebral calisthenics. Without 
continued laborious effort on his part, all bills con¬ 
tracted by him were quickly dissipated by fairies’ 
wands in the shape of written demands on the cor¬ 
porate thesaurus, so he jollied himself into the gro¬ 
tesque belief that his former scheme of living had been 
highly erroneous, and that he had just begun really 
to live. He took for his motto, “Let Lohengrin W. 
do it.” 




53 


Platen § Junk 

’T TTTT’T TT TTT T^T T ▼ ▼ ^T^T^T T T~^ ▼ T^r " T" T ^ r ▼ 'T 1 r 

When he left the sanatorium behind, he was thor¬ 
oughly imbued with the longing to loaf, and began to 
impersonate a scion of the unoccupied wealthy. 
Early in his wanderings along the pathway of pro¬ 
crastination he discovered the footprints which his 
renovated partner had left in the dust of dalliance. 
Fascinated, Jehosophat followed them. They led 
him along the lane of laziness and levity, over the 
highway of high-balls and hilarity, and along the 
road of recklessness and remorse. 

Similar causes foster parallel effects. Before long 
the stentorian anthem of proficiency which had issued 
from the little printery was metamorphosed to the 
enervated dirge of unapplauded mercantile advance¬ 
ment. The callouses on Lohengrin W.’s overworked 
shoulders developed malignant propensities which 
threatened to consign him to the same institution of 
regeneration which had rehabilitated his since-prodi- 
gal partner. The movement of the wheels within 
their establishment became so torpid that it no 
longer entranced the god of gain as once it had. At 
length, one sorry day, their gilded guest stepped 
into the backyard to inspect the gas supply of his 




54 


Platen <§ Junk 

■ ^ v •w v v t v w v t •* ir t 'r~'r t - T' y - y "v" v ~v 

auto, and when lie re-entered the shop, he discarded 
his smoking-jacket, donned a long linen duster and 
leather cap with goggles attached, and slammed shut 
the lid of his toggery chest. 

Like strolls lead to corresponding destinations. 
As Lohengrin W. had done before him, just in time 
Jehosophat came out of his trance of truancy. In 
a flash he saw the silliness of his sally. And the 
blood-curdling spectacle of their glittering lodger’s 
preparing again to depart supplied the last-needed 
goad to honest effort. Animated with re-aw r akened 
energy, Jehosophat caught in mid-air the sponge 
which Lohengrin W. was forced to toss up, and in¬ 
dustriously applied it to the throbbing brow of their 
financial venture. 

An overworked partner, assisted, like truth beaten 
to earth, and house-rent temporarily lowered, soon 
rises again. Lohengrin W. rallied quickly. Again 
the little printery took on a lot of life. And once 
more the god of gain drifted into a cataleptic state. 

Jehosophat and Lohengrin W. have mastered their 
little primer. They have learned that both must ap¬ 
ply themselves in earnest if they wish to attract the 




55 


Platen Junk 


kopecks. They know that the wheel of industry will 
continue to travel for a while after its propelling 
power has been diminished, or even shut off alto¬ 
gether, but that eventually it will come to a stop. 
They have learned that the god of gain, once the 
loitering wheels relax their sway over him, evinces a 
marked restlessness and the propensity to migrate. 
And being wise to these matters, Jehosophat Platen 
and Lohengrin W. Junk now labor conscientiously, 
consistently and contentedly, and they purpose that 
harmonious co-operation shall be their watch-phrase 
until they are ready to close the commercial career 
of Platen & Junk, Master Typographers. 





The Psalm of a Pair of Pumps 

ElI SLINKER, printing solicitor, kissed his wife 
good-bye on the front porch of their home. With a 
spring in his gait which was usually missing he swung 
down the street to catch the eight-seven trolley for 
the city. 

Presently the car came along and Eli leaped 
aboard. Ordinarily Eli merely got aboard trolleys, 
not leaped; but this time he leaped. 

For some reason beyond his reach, the printing 
salesman found it easy to smile calmly in answer to 
the conductor’s stereotyped “Good morning!” right 
there before all the smokers on the rear platform. 
Usually Eli blushed and stammered in response to 
that matutinal greeting and cast furtive glances at 
the various smokers to see if they had noticed the 
conductor thus publicly recognize such an humble 
soul as he. But this time Eli smiled calmly, and 

there could be no doubt about it. 

56 


The Psalm of a Pair of Pumps 57 

r~-y w w vt v y t ▼ v r-^r v -r t 't ▼ vt- ttt v -t-t ■» ▼ ▼ ▼ ■y ▼' 

Only a moment did Eli hesitate before attempting 
a hitherto-undared proceeding. Away up toward 
the front of the long side seat was a vacant place. 
It had been the custom of the printing solicitor to 
disregard such opportunities to sit down on the way 
to the office. He had been in the habit of inwardly 
apologizing for his lack of courage, by trying to 
make himself believe that the reason for his remain¬ 
ing on the rear platform was that he wished to bene¬ 
fit his general health by standing in the fresh air. 
But this time the storming of that hazardous seat 
seemed easy. With the steady demeanor which he 
usually employed in strolling down a deserted alley 
at dusk, the extempore hero advanced up the aisle 
and seated himself in the midst of a volley of stares 
from the short side seats opposite. The experience 
was a new one for Eli, but after one or two quick 
flutterings of the eyelids, he declined to feel per¬ 
turbed. 

Right across the aisle from him sat Smithers, fat 
and officious neighbor Smithers, the identical Smi¬ 
thers who was in the habit of tramping through the 





58 The Psalm of a Pair of Pumps 


Slinker flower bed once a week on his way over to 
borrow the Slinker lawn-mower. Theretofore Eli had 
found it difficult to look his patronizing neighbor in 
the face without blushing apologetically, especially 
on the day following each borrowing of the grass- 
cutter, when Eli had appeared at the Smithers’s 
kitchen door and timidly asked w r as Mr. Smithers 
please through with the machine. But this time Eli 
refused to shrivel. He met Smithers’s glare of recog¬ 
nition with nonchalance, and there could be no doubt 
about it. 

When Eli breezed into the printing office, Bloomer, 
the manager, noticed something odd about his sub¬ 
ordinate, but was not sure just what it w T as. The 
solicitor w r ent about his preliminary duties with a 
bustle which caused his superior further surprise; 
and later, when Eli had routed his assignments and 
sw r ung out of the office, Bloomer sat dow r n and tried 
to figure it all out. But the proposition was too 
much for him. 

Eli went after his first customer determined to 
win; so, of course, it was difficult to lose. The or¬ 
der was a good one, too. The solicitor swung on to 




The Psalm of a Pair of Pumps 59 


his next stop with a courage which was new and 
strange to him, and number two fell in line with the 
promptness of number one. By noon Eli had seen 
over half of his prospects and had registered but 
few defeats. And then he learned that he was hungry. 

That discovery was made right in front of the De 
Luxe Cafe, an epicurean paradise which Eli had 
often regarded from without, but never from the 
gilded inside. In former times the one-arm chairs and 
lunch counters had beckoned him when hunger had 
registered itself in his vicinity. But this time his 
courage effervesced, and the De Luxe Cafe was 
essayed. In he went, calmly, smilingly. 

Plymouth Peterson of the Peterson Box Company, 
the firm on Eli’s list scheduled next to be called on, 
was just leaving the cafe as Eli entered. The ex¬ 
ponent of big business nodded pleasantly, and in¬ 
wardly noted that Slinker must really believe in the 
truth of his favorite slogan of “Quality First.” 

So when Eli talked with Plymouth Peterson in his 
private office a little later, the statement of “Quality 
First” had a genuine ring, and another good order 
was placed in the solicitor’s game bag. 






60 The Psalm of a Pair of Pumps 


And so the afternoon duplicated the success of the 
morning. Many orders were secured. And when at 
length Eli went back to the printing office, Bloomer 
was more surprised than ever, and again wasted a 
deal of time in trying to solve a problem that was too 
much for him. 

Eli’s wife met him on the front porch of their home 
and greeted him with a welcoming kiss. The print¬ 
ing solicitor followed his helpmeet into the house and 
sank into his favorite armchair. Later he removed 
the new pair of pumps which he had been obliged to 
wear that day while his old shoes were being repaired 
by the neighborhood cobbler, and put on the mended 
shoes. He rose to his feet and started to go into 
the kitchen for supper, when he caught sight of 
Smithers coming plowing through the Slinker peonies 
to borrow the Slinker lawn-mower. And suddenly the 
nonchalant Eli Slinker that was, became the cring¬ 
ing Eli Slinker that had been. All of his grand cour¬ 
age of that day was gone and he was the man of yes¬ 
terday. Apologetically he hurried into the basement 
and got the grass-cutter. And he acted as though 





The Psalm of a Pair of Pumps 61 


T ▼ ▼ T ▼ ▼ T 




~"T^r *w m wv 


he was guilty of discourtesy in not offering to carry 
the machine over to the Smithers home, instead of 
merely smiling indulgently as his corpulent neighbor 
dragged it away through the peony bed. 

And it was not until late that evening that Eli 
Slinker analyzed the phenomenon to his satisfaction 
and learned a lesson which he never forgot. All of 
his grand courage of that day was directly traceable 
to the wearing of a pair of properly fitting pumps. 
The feeling of comfort which had been awakened in 
his feet had communicated itself to his entire person 
and had created much confidence for him. 

And in the days which followed, Eli discovered that 
shoes are only one of the items which should be made 
to help the printing solicitor in his work. The col¬ 
lar, the tie, the vest, the shave, and many other 
things of a personal character, he learned, each plays 
a part in helping to distract or attract success. 

Eli now saves his old shoes and shabby clothes to 
be worn in the vegetable garden in the Slinker back¬ 
yard, and the bewhiskered countenance for that oc¬ 
casional fishing trip up the river; but such things are 





62 The Psalm of a Pair of Pumps 


not permitted to enter his business life, for there is 
no place for them in the repertoire of the successful 
printing solicitor. 






David Farrow Goes A -Trancing 

That David Farrow showed commendable discre¬ 
tion in establishing his print shop in the middle sec¬ 
tion of that three-store front not all may agree; 
but that he exercised questionable judgment in at¬ 
tempting to pacify his contentious fellow-tenants on 
that windy morning in early spring most thinking 
persons will admit. 

The trouble had begun when Clancy, the plumber, 
to the left, had objected to the showing of a crate of 
oranges in the window of Tony, the fruit dealer, to 
the right. The son of Erin had waxed eloquent in 
his condemnation of the Greek’s act of disrespect for 
the day, but the dark-skinned vendor of table delica¬ 
cies had failed to see why a consignment of choice 
fruit that might be exhibited with propriety on either 
the sixteenth or eighteenth of March, might not be 
exposed to the public gaze equally correctly on the 

intervening day as well. Hostilities had progressed 

63 



David Farrow found himself in a strange country. 







David Farrow Goes A-Trancing 65 

▼ v t ▼ ▼ *T' ▼ w ▼ " ▼ - r -y-r v t v y t ▼ - v ▼ r~y-r - T- v ▼ *r ▼ == ^r 

to the point where each of the disputants had retired 
within his place of business in quest of an implement 
adapted to the pastime of homicide, when David Far¬ 
row’s attention was attracted to the fracas. As the 
armed belligerents reappeared on the sidewalk, David 
Farrow took upon himself the role—and usual treat¬ 
ment—of peacemaker. 

Hardly had the cudgel wielded by the incensed 
fruiterer, and the soldering-iron operated by the out¬ 
raged sanitary engineer, come in emphatic contact 
with the topmost extremity of David Farrow’s medi¬ 
ating person than he found himself in a strange coun¬ 
try. He stood at the foot of a long and steep ac¬ 
clivity. Winding its course up the hill was a narrow 
and bumpy road. On either side of the highway ran 
a smooth, chute-like ditch. Along the inner edge of 
each ditch, and the outer edges of the road, grew a 
profusion of purple sunflowers. From each flower 
issued a tiny spiral of perfumed smoke and music of 
wonderful sweetness. Away in the distance, at the 
top of the ascent, the two lines of sunflowers merged 
and assumed the proportions of a king’s garden. 
Above, the sky was filled with countless stars, and 







66 David Farrow Goes A-Trancing 


seven moons illuminated the scene with the splendor 
of noonday. 

David Farrow’s feeling of wonder presently sub¬ 
sided a little, and his brain recorded a hitherto-un- 
noticed sensation. Something seemed to have gone 
wrong with his feet. They tingled like the prongs of 
a tuning-fork which has just been struck a sharp 
blow. They were not remarkably hot, nor yet exces¬ 
sively cold; but it seemed to their owner that he was 
standing upon a cake of ice a-top a red-hot stove. 

Without receiving any conscious command from 
David Farrow’s brain, in a moment or so his feet 
began to move forward. There was no controlling 
them. Slowly they moved at first, then faster and 
faster. Soon they were going at lightning speed. 
But a few moments later those wilful feet suddenly 
stopped running. David Farrow sprawled headlong, 
with his outstretched hands just this side of the first 
of the purple sunflowers. 

The chagrined printer recovered his equilibrium 
and attempted to go ahead. He was unable to do 
so. The tiny spirals of perfumed smoke rising from 
the nearest blossoms thrilled him with delight, and 





David Farrow Goes A-Trancing 67 

'▼ W *▼ ' ▼' T V ' V T ?T¥VVTV VT *^T~ ▼' ' ▼' "W~ V T~ T '^T T ” T V V T" V ^ ^ r^rT’ 

the ecstatic music issuing from them filled him with a 
strong desire to pick a few for his very own. But 
entrancing as w r ere the individual flowers which grew 
by the wayside, they were as nothing compared to 
the garden at the top of the hill. More than he had 
ever wanted anything in his life, David Farrow 
wanted to climb that hill and enjoy that garden. He 
had the feeling that the panacea for the affliction 
which troubled his feet w T as to be found there—yet 
he could not advance. He felt drawn toward that 
garden like foolish customers toward a cut-rate 
printery—but he could not move forward. 

In trying to evolve a plan whereby he might achieve 
his ambition, David Farrow’s eyes regarded his faith¬ 
less objects of locomotion. Just in front of them, 
and not in the least obliterated because of his fall, 
was some writing in the dust of the road. “Foot 
traveling prohibited; go back and board a car,” the 
legend ran. 

Turning about, David Farrow saw what he had 
failed to see in his original survey of the place. To 
the right and left and a little to the rear of his point 
of introduction was a conveyance after the fashion of 







68 David Farrow Goes A-Trancing 

a motor-truck. The seat of each vehicle was oc¬ 
cupied by a creature of human form. 

David Farrow was curious to view the two equi¬ 
pages from a closer point, and he wondered if his 
feet would consent to a return trip. Fie was glad 
when he discovered that they responded to the dic¬ 
tates of his will; slowly, however, and with no abate¬ 
ment of the tingling feeling. 

Upon approaching quite close to the two convey¬ 
ances, the wondering printer at once noticed a vast 
difference in their proportions and details. The 
machine to the left—it would have been to his right 
had he been facing the hill—was large and stiff and 
new looking. The body of the car was mounted on a 
pair of caterpillar propellers. The seat w r as devoid 
of padding, and altogether uninviting. A haughty 
young man in starchy clothes sat stiffly behind the 
steering-wheel. The other car was smaller and older 
and more comfortable looking. It was fitted with 
four wheels of the ordinary sort. A leather cushion 
was a feature of the seat’s upholstery. Its pilot was 
a little old man of slouchy appearance and a three- 
column gray beard. 





David Farrow Goes A-Trancing 69 

T T r r T t y ^r - «r T yr ~ * ▼ t -tt -t y t t t y t t p t 

David Farrow tried to say hello, and ask regard¬ 
ing the fare up the hill; but he was unable to talk. 
For some reason beyond his comprehension, the power 
of speech was denied him. His lips moved, but no 
sound went forth. 

However, both drivers seemed to appreciate his 
predicament. The young pilot elevated his eyebrows 
slightly, and pressed the bulb of his horn. “Deposit 
twenty-five cents with the chauffeur and be seated,” 
honked that unique instrument. The driver of the 
other conveyance nodded and smiled pleasantly. 
Drawing his beard to one side, he disclosed a sign 
depending from a cord about his neck. The sign 
read: “Slip the Old Scout a chew and let’s go.” 

For more reasons than one, but for one reason in 
particular, David Farrow had more tobacco than 
money. Anyhow, the smaller car was the more 
comfortable looking of the two, and its driver ap¬ 
peared the more friendly. The typographic pilgrim 
removed a long plug from his hip pocket, handed it 
to the little gray driver, and seated then himself be¬ 
side him. 





70 David Farrow Goes A-Trancing 

- , TT- T 'iry-r-ir~r r- T -' »^T--ir- v -'r yrT -vT-Y-T-r ▼ t t' vt- t t yr-'w » r T t y T 

The old man tucked a third of the plug under his 
tongue, returned the balance to his seat-mate, and 
they started merrily ahead. 

The feet of the passenger still were tingling to at¬ 
tain the garden at the top of the hill; but when the 
car reached the first of the purple sunflowers that 
grew by the wayside, the odor of incense and the vol¬ 
ume of harmony emanating from them soothed his 
feet a little, and aroused within him the wish to 
gather a bouquet as they went along. 

As they progressed upward, David Farrow r leaned 
out and grabbed a large flower. He held it close be¬ 
fore him. The fragrance and melody rising from its 
center nearly overpowered him with delight. He de¬ 
cided to pick hundreds and hundreds of them. 

The enraptured flower-picker reached out to pick 
a second blossom, but just then the machine struck a 
bump in the road and caused him to miss his aim. 
And the striking of that bump wrought havoc with 
the flower in his hand. It shrank amazingly. An¬ 
other bump in the road was encountered and again 
the flower diminished in size. 





David Farrow Goes A-Trancing 71 

—V W~ 'W ' W T T T T’ ▼ V 'y y T~T T'T TT 

But amazed as David Farrow was at what he saw, 
an extra-fine flower right ahead caught his attention 
and he meant to own it. He leaned far out over the 
side. The car hit another bump. The reacher lost his 
balance and fell overboard. 

No sooner had the outer covering of his medulla 
oblongata become affiliated with the slippery surface 
of the ditch below than he started to travel down¬ 
ward at an alarming rate of speed. A moment later 
he brought up at the very bottom of the hill, bruised 
and disgusted. He looked to see how his flower had 
come through the mishap—and it was gone. 

Although his descent had been rapid, when David 
Farrow had regained his feet and finished dusting 
himself, he saw that the smaller car and its smiling 
old driver were back at the starting point ready to 
receive another passenger. How they had got there 
David Farrow did not know, but there they were 
plainly to be seen. 

As David Farrow drew near, the little gray pilot 
again nodded and smiled pleasantly. Once more he 
drew aside the tapestry of chin-whiskers and for the 





TT T T 


72 David Farrow Goes A-Trancing 

▼ T T T T T T T T T- T ' T-T- T- T T ▼ T ▼ T T T T T T ' T 'T T ▼ ▼ ▼ T ’T"1 

second time the printer read: “Slip the Old Scout a 
chew and let’s go.” 

A reproduction of the vanished flower adorned a 
pedestal in the main hall of David Farrow’s memory. 
The securing of other such blossoms was worth any 
effort. He handed over his plug of tobacco, and re¬ 
seated himself beside the small chauffeur. 

The little old driver bit off half the proffered slab, 
returned the other half, and away they went as be¬ 
fore. 

This time David Farrow reached out and secured 
the foremost flower that grew by the wayside. It 
was a fine specimen of floral art. Deeply into his 
lungs he drew the odor of incense arising from it, 
and he felt singularly happy; so sweetly did its gentle 
symphony engage his sense of hearing that he 
thought he detected a roll of appreciation on the 
part of his own eardrums. 

But his enjoyment of the flower was ephemeral. 
The first bump in the road robbed the blossom of its 
great size and charm. Another uneven spot divested 
it of additional territory and appeal. David Far¬ 
row became so absorbed in contemplating his now- 





David Farrow Goes A-Trancing 73 

daisy-like prize that the next bump caught him un¬ 
aware and jarred him from his seat. He landed in 
the ditch and went flying down the hill. His arrival 
at its foot found him scarred and offended, and his 
flower was nowhere to be seen. 

When David Farrow again noticed the smaller car 
and its ancient jehu back at the place of beginning, 
he began to suspect a swindle. But his tingling feet 
insisted on gaining the garden, and the two missing 
flowers had created a craving that demanded appeas¬ 
ing. Mind was bullied by matter; reason cowered be¬ 
fore the blustering of appetite. The desperate 
printer surrendered the last of his tobacco, and 
mounted the conveyance for the third time. 

Determined not to fall overboard again, David 
Farrow held firmly to the seat with his left hand as 
they started up the hill. At an opportune moment 
he reached out and made a double grab with his right. 
The two fine flowers retrieved dissipated his wariness. 
With his left hand grasping the flowers instead of 
the seat, the reacher was an easy victim for the next 
big bump. The finis of his third toboggan slide 
found him hurt and angry, and his two latest flowers 




74 David Farrow Goes A-Trancing 


had gone the way of the wood-pigeon and the buffalo. 

The sight of the smaller car and its little old 
driver again back at the starting point shook the 
grates of David Farrow’s anger. His determination 
to have nothing more to do with the outfit was not 
alone because his supply of tobacco was exhausted; 
for he was now convinced that he had been buncoed. 

Gladly would he have given up the quest; but his 
vibrating feet refused to quit, and he was now ad¬ 
dicted to the purple-sunflower habit. 

Despairingly, David Farrow thrust both hands 
into the side pockets of his trousers. The fingers of 
his right hand encountered an object which hurried 
the doctor from the bedside of his dying hope and 
ushered in a big brass band. He drew into the strong 
moonshine a battered silver quarter. 

The glitter of the coin caught the eye of the driver 
of the larger motor-truck. The cool young man 
raised his eyebrows a little, and squeezed the bulb of 
his horn. “Deposit twenty-five cents with the chauf¬ 
feur and be seated,” suggested the horn. 

David Farrow leaped to the hard, unpadded seat, 
and parted with his quarter. 





David Farrow Goes A-Trancing 75 

▼ ▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼ 

For several minutes the large machine remained at 
a standstill. Then it began to creep ahead, slowly 
but surely. 

When the conveyance arrived on a line with the 
foremost of the purple sunflowers, David Farrow 
reached out for a blossom and secured a fine one. 
The machine advanced so slowly that he was enabled 
to pluck the second flower that grew near his side of 
the road. Soon the third and the fourth and the fifth 
were garnered. Then the delighted passenger made 
a pleasing discovery. The car of which he was an 
occupant was not affected by the bumps in the road. 
Its peculiar driving apparatus carried it smoothly 
over the rough places. The big machine • continued 
to ascend the grade; David Farrow continued to pick 
flowers; the collected blossoms continued to flourish. 
And when the large car finally reached the top of the 
hill, it was filled to overflowing with fine purple sun¬ 
flowers. 

As they had progressed upward, the tingling sen¬ 
sation in David Farrow’s feet gradually had become 
less acute, and the attaining of the garden witnessed 
a complete cure. When the conveyance came to a 




76 David Farrow Goes A-Tranting 


stop beside a high fountain, and a rising breeze ca¬ 
ressed his brow, a feeling of blissfulness was his; a 
feeling that his every want was satisfied; and he 
leaned back languidly upon his floral couch, desiring 
nothing further than to lie there and dream for aye. 

But the breeze soon became a wind, and carried 
spray over him. His reverie was disturbed. Glanc¬ 
ing toward the top of the fountain, he saw that its 
upper waters and mists had formed themselves into 
opalescent words and sentences plainly discernible in 
the moonlight. The wondering printer read: 

Welcome, David Farrow, welcome. Bringing with 
you the profits reaped along the Road of Business, you 
have ascended the Hill of Success. At its foot you 
tried to speak, but none heard you. You were just an¬ 
other printer, and what you had to say was of little 
importance to others. Now you are successful and so 
command without speaking. But you nearly had been 
a failure. Three times you were tricked into bumping 
the bumps with Old Careless System, who never gets 
his passengers very far, and always returns them to the 
starting point; but you got started right when you paid 





▼ T- 


David Farrow Goes A-Trancing 77 


your fare and rode with his young offspring, Standard 
Cost System. 

When David Farrow came to he was lying on a 
pipe-bench in the room to the left of his print shop, 
with a blast of air from an electric fan blowing 
across his face. A wet towel was about bis aching 
head, and pressed against the soles of his bare feet 
were two hot bricks. Beside him lay a still figure simi¬ 
larly swathed and poulticed. It was the figure of 
Tony, the fruiterer. Lounging in a chair tipped back 
against a fitting case, the bib of his overalls sup¬ 
porting a corsage bouquet of shamrocks, was Clancy, 
the plumber. There was a look of peacefulness on his 
face, and he was softly humming, “The Wearin’ o’ 
the Green.” 


l 





The A mbitions of Jimmie Rew 


BlLLETED within the breast of Jimmie Rew, 
the Modern Print Shop’s dump kid, was a three- 
magazine ambition. Jimmie’s foremost desire in life 
was to enter into real existence by becoming a mem¬ 
ber of the firm’s select battery of swifts; his final, 
to top off his earthly triumphs by drowning in a 
cloudburst of gooseberry pie. And his intervening 
wish was to experience the delight of taking Griggs, 
the composing-room foreman, paternally by the hand, 
leading him up and placing him in front of a huge 
skyscraper, and then slipping quickly to the rear of 
the building and pushing it over on Griggs. 

Jimmie Rew lay on his back on the make-up stone, 
with his feet braced against a large form of type, 
and scowled up at the flies engaged in noon-day prom¬ 
enade along the ceiling. Although two large wedges 
of his favorite pastry had just been negotiated by 

him, Jimmie was far from happy. Yet his feeling of 

78 


The Ambitions of Jimmie Rew 79 

I' T y T ^ T T T T TT TTT T T T T T T TT y rTy T T y TTT T TTT TT T ~T' 

discontent was due only partly to the fierce heat of 
the day. The latest machinations of Griggs, the fore¬ 
man, were responsible for the deeper shadows round 
Jimmie’s youthful soul. 

For several days Jimmie had planned how that 
Saturday afternoon was to be celebrated. First 
there was to be a big box of lunch from home, enough 
lunch to sustain him until night, a mammoth lunch 
whose completion should be signalized by the masti¬ 
cating of a double portion of gooseberry pie. Then 
there was to be that inspiring two hours of practice 
at the keyboard, at the identical keyboard over which 
the precious hands of Davis, the local king swift, 
glided daily. And then was to come the sprint for 
the three-o’clock car and away for the bleachers at 
the ball park. 

But just before quitting time Saturday noon a 
very ebony lining had evinced itself in Jimmie’s silver 
cloud. At one minute of twelve had come Griggs 
with a thunderbolt of dictum which had profaned 
that half day of paradise into an afternoon of metal 
melting! 




80 


The Ambitions of Jimmie Reno 

T T T T T T T T T T~y T ~ T ~ T T T T T ' T - TT TTy TTTTTT T TTyTyT Tft ' 

So anger and a longing for revenge cankered in 
the mind of Jimmie Rew as he lay on his back on 
the make-up stone. 

But presently his discontent was allayed some¬ 
what by a subterfuge of youth. The somnolent ef¬ 
fect consequent upon the assimilation of much goose¬ 
berry pie, and the mesmeric influence brought about 
by the too-steady observance of bestirring insects, 
placed Jimmie’s sub-conscious mind in the ascend¬ 
ency and opened the floodgates of the make- 
believe. 

•••••••• 

With his mind’s eye, Jimmie saw Griggs rush into 
the composing-room with a wild look in his eyes and 
a yell of consternation on his lips. 

“They’re dead, I tell you!” yelled the foreman. 
“All of ’em are dead! With my own eyes I saw ’em 
die. Our whole battery of swifts is gone. The ele¬ 
vator dropped six stories, and all on board were 
killed. They’re dead, I tell you—dead ! dead ! dead!” 

“In that case,” yawned Jimmie, becoming slightly 
interested, “I suppose the decent thing for me 




The Ambitions of Jimmie Rew 


81 


to do is to step in and keep this place together.” 

A mazda of hope illumined the features of Griggs. 
“Jimmie Rew!” he exclaimed, “Jimmie Rew! Why 
didn’t I think of you before? With you on the job, 
we still have a mighty good chance. What you say 
goes, Jimmie Rew. And I’m banking on you to save 
the day!” 

In a flash Jimmie’s lassitude was gone, and he had 
become a lad of many actions. 

“There’s only one way to handle this thing,” cried 
Jimmie, “and if you, Griggsy, old boy, do just as I 
say, we’ll win hands down and make folks wonder 
how we did it. 

“Just hurry right over to the Linotype company 
and tell ’em that Jimmie Rew, the city’s speedin’ 
wonder, wants a made-to-order lino set up in this 
room right away. Tell ’em to fit her with a triple 
keyboard and four second elevators, and to fix things 
so that I can use all of her molds at once. Tell ’em to 
build her eight magazines forty-seven mats deep, 
and have ’em speed the old dear up to ninety lines a 
minute! 




82 


The Ambitions of Jimmie Rew 


“Remember all these things, Griggsy, old boy, as 
you hurry along. And don’t forget to drop in and 
tell the gov’nor I’ve decided to let myself out on the 
keyboards for once—and the mayor, and the chief o’ 
police, and all the aldermen, and that overgrown 
dump kid over at the Globe, and everybody else who 
can afford to spend ten bones to watch me ramble 
for the benefit of the starving Aztecs. 

“Bring back with you the best brass band in town, 
and the finest baker, with lots of gooseberry pies. 
And don’t forget to tell Molly McGuire I’m reservin’ 
her a ring-side seat. And ask her to have on that 
nifty blue dress she was wearin’ the night I hung one 
on Sandy Bilz for walkin’ through the square with 
her. And on the way out, Griggsy, old boy, see that 
the metal-pot is going good, so you’ll be all ready to 
start dippin’ just as soon as you get back! 

“Shake a leg, Griggsy, and remember that the 
fate of this place, and even my own fair name are 
in your keepin’!” 

Griggs disappeared, and Jimmie Rew peeled off 
his shirt and produced a bottle of fishworm oil from 






The Ambitions of Jimmie Rew 


83 


space. By magic two attendants appeared and gave 
him a vigorous rubdown. A host of carpenters came 
out of the air and quickly erected a mighty amphi¬ 
theater. 

A moment later Griggs returned with a force of 
mechanics and the very latest thing in Linotypes. 
Then came the governor, and the mayor, and the 
chief of police, and all the aldermen, and the Globe's 
overgrown dump kid, and hundreds and hundreds of 
just people, and a great brass band, and the best 
baker in town, with three dozen gooseberry pies, and 
pretty Molly McGuire with the nifty blue dress she 
was wearing the night Jimmie hung one on Sandy 
Bilz for walking through the square with her. 

At length Jimmie motioned to the band-master, 
and everybody stood while the “Star-Spangled Ban¬ 
ner” was played. Then the governor went through 
the needless red tape of introducing the hero of the 
minute to the common people. Jimmie responded with 
a modest speech of acknowledgment, and ended 
his talk by boosting the Aztec Relief, and explaining 
just how he had hung that peacherino on Sandy Bilz 




84 


The Ambitions of Jimmie Rew 

T T T T 'T- T TT TT T T TT T T T T T-T 'y T-T y T T T T T T T T T T T T ¥ T » W 

that night in the square, and giving due credit for 
his personal success in the world to hard work and 
the inspiration of pretty Molly McGuire. 

With a whole gooseberry pie in his left hand, and 
before him the satisfying sight of Griggs perspir- 
ingly dipping molten metal, Jimmie was about to be¬ 
gin performing, when the interruption occurred which 

paged him back to earth ! 

• ••••••• 

The crash which followed the precipitating of the 
large form of type from the make-up stone filled the 
soul of Jimmie Rew with a feeling of terror which w T as 
instantly multiplied by the footsteps of the return¬ 
ing Griggs. 

From his hands and knees beside the metal cart 
which had caught the mass of pied matter, Jimmie 
sneaked a half-look upward, expecting to be withered 
by the glare of the irate foreman. 

“Spilled it already, eh?” snapped Griggs. “So 
they told you that form was a dead one, did they? 
Hard at work, as usual, Jimmie, and here it’s only 
ten minutes of one. I guess you surely deserve that 
two-dollar raise I talked the boss into putting into 



The Ambitions of Jimmie Rew 85 

*r-v-T ’r-r- ^ -r - T - T T t tttttttt t T'^r ▼ t t t t ▼ t t rr t t ' TT t t ▼’ 

your envelope this evening. You’re all right, Jim¬ 
mie ; you’re all right.” And the chuckling Griggs * 
moved on to his desk. 

On the way home that evening Jimmie Rew re¬ 
hearsed again his ambitions in life, and learned that 
one of them had undergone a great change. His 
foremost desire still was to enter into real existence 
by becoming a member of the firm’s select battery of 
swifts; his final, still to top off his earthly triumphs 
by drowning in a cloudburst of gooseberry pie. But 
his intervening wish was now greatly modified. In 
the light of the foreman’s recent benefaction, Jim¬ 
mie felt much more lenient in his behalf. And now, 
instead of wishing to inveigle Griggs beneath a huge 
skyscraper, Jimmie generously decided to be satis¬ 
fied with ensconcing him beneath a building of merely 
five stories. 





Old Man Gorrs began smilingly to predigest an un¬ 
plucked plum in the garden of business. 















Old Man Gorrs 
and the Seventh Heaven 


4 ^ 4 =- 

Old Man Gorrs put down his battered desk pen 
and heaved a sigh of fatigued satisfaction. Slowly 
he folded a large sheet of paper and placed it in a 
big envelope. After trailing an exhausted tongue 
over the gummed flap, he tiredly sealed the letter 
container. Then he turned wearily about in his 
swivel chair and regarded the only other occupant 
of the dimly lighted little office. 

The ravenous errand boy, at once aware that his 
abnormal day’s work was nearly consummated and 
that soon he would be streaking it toward a long- 
waiting supper, leaped out of his chair and a session 
of juvenile sulks and stood beside the owner of the 
shop. 

“Take this letter straight to the office of the Bing- 
ler Manufacturing Company, in the Trust Build¬ 
ing,” said Old Man Gorrs, “and hand it to Mr. 

87 


88 


Old Man Gorrs 


y 'T T 'TT TT T TT V TT T TTTT T T~TTT r y T ▼ ▼ T T T ' T T T T ▼ T T T T T T 

Anderson of the publicity department. The Bing- 
ler Manufacturing Company, understand; and give 
it to no one but Mr. Anderson. He’ll be waiting for 
you. Tell him he can reach me here at the office by 
’phone till after seven-thirty if anything needs ex¬ 
plaining. You needn’t return this evening. Now 
hurry along!” 

The hysterical echoes consequent to the lad’s 
speeding hardly had calmed themselves before Old 
Man Gorrs began smilingly to predigest an unplucked 
plum in the garden of business. 

“Ha! ha! ha!” he chuckled to the solitary electric 
light which glowed above the type-specimen book on 
the broad summit of his roll-top desk. “When An¬ 
derson sees my bid on his catalogue, Smith & Son 
won’t have a look in. I’m losing seventy-five at my 
figure, but it’s worth every cent of that to beat old 
Zeb Smith and that cost-system son of his to it. 
And if Madonna & Gorrs land the first order from 
this new concern, it’ll be a lot easier for us to get 
their future work. Zeb Smith’ll throw a fit tomor¬ 
row when the job’s let. If poor old Pete was only 
here tonight, I’ll bet he’d twist that half-and-half 





Old Man Gorrs 89 

■v -' r w‘ w t ▼ r t T ' rv ttt tt t t t tt t 

mustache of his and smile one of his old-time smiles 
at the way things now look. Ha! ha! ha!” 

As Old Man Gorrs finished chuckling, his tired eyes 
happened to survey the face of the wall calendar 
above his desk and to the right of the electric light. 
The big figure eight below the word June demanded 
and received his attention. Abruptly it occurred to 
him that that very night was the first anniversary of 
his former partner’s death. Exactly one year before, 
to the hour, Peter Madonna had died. 

Old Man Gorrs pushed the telephone to one side, 
placed his feet, one across the other, on his desk, and 
drowsily settled back to await a possible call from 
Anderson. 

Tired and sleepy though the printer was, he could 
not keep his thoughts off Peter Madonna that had 
been. The little clock on the office desk registered 
eleven minutes past seven. Dazedly Old Man Gorrs 
remembered, and with a sensation of tired wonder 
that he should be so sure about such a small detail, 
that Peter Madonna had died at thirteen minutes 
past seven. Then the waiter hazily recalled some¬ 
thing else—the last words of his dying partner. 




90 


Old Man Gorrs 


y r ▼ '▼ ’T’ ▼ T T T T T T - T ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼’ 

Simultaneously with Old Man Gorrs’s surrender to 
the luxury of slumber, those words arranged them¬ 
selves before him in a line of fire: 

Exactly one year from tonight , Dan Gorrs , Vm go¬ 
ing to pay yon a visit! 

When Old Man Gorrs finished reading the line, 
queer things began to happen. One by one, from 
beginning to end, the red-hot words and commas in 
the line exploded. There were sixteen separate and 
distinct reports. Then the scattered fragments of 
the shattered symbols resolved themselves into one 
seething whole and reinforced the exclamation point. 
The glowing ‘‘scare mark” swelled in size until it 
nearly filled the little office. When the bomb-resem¬ 
bling lower portion of the punctuation point ex¬ 
ploded, the rocket-like staff burst w r ith a terrific 
crash, and the room was filled w r ith hissing tongues 
of flame. 

Suddenly the fiery tongues, by a process all their 
own, lapped up the roar of the explosion and retired. 
The little office became very quiet. Old Man Gorrs’s 
astonished gaze w T as attracted to an object in the 





Old Man Gorrs 


91 


glow of the electric light above his desk. There, 
seated on the near edge of the type-specimen book, 
feet crossed and swinging, sat the microscopic figure 
of Peter Madonna! 

Old Man Gorrs instantly recognized his late ec¬ 
centric partner. There was no mistaking that 
many-knobbed bald head. Never had there been an¬ 
other such mustache—the right half of it a snowy 
white and the left half a burnished red—which had 
earned him the sobriquet of Old Half-and-Half. And 
there were other marks of identification. Upon 
Peter Madonna’s bulging forehead were the large 
silver spectacles and upon his feet the two-buckled 
overshoes which he had insisted on wearing to his 
grave. 

As Old Man Gorrs amazedly scrutinized the con¬ 
densed form of his friend and business associate of 
the past, he noticed that Peter Madonna’s left hand 
grasped a thin tape-like string which made its way 
toward the ceiling of the room and lost itself, and 
that in his right hand he held the big open-faced 
watch which Adenoids Seashore, the embalmer, had 
placed in the dead man’s vest pocket. 







92 


Old Man Gorrs 


T T TT T TT T T T TTTTT TTT t f TT T T T T" > T ’TT 'TT T T TTT Ty ' T* 

“Thirteen minutes past seven, Dan!” roared the 
tiny figure on the type-specimen book. 

“Gosh-all-Friday! Can it really be you, Pete?” 
gasped Old Man Gorrs, marveling that such a mighty 
voice should emanate from so small a frame. 

In life Peter Madonna had owned just such a 
voice. 

“Why, of course, it’s me, Dan,” said the dwarfed 
visitor, putting away the time-piece and stroking the 
snowy section of his mustache. “Said I’d be here, 
didn’t I? I always kept my word on earth; and when 
I told Gabriel about my parting promise to you, he 
let me have fifteen minutes off. ‘It’s against the 
rules, Pete,’ he said; ‘but you’re a pretty good friend 
of mine, so it’ll be all right this once. Take your 
time going, but hurry back!’ And here I am, Dan. 
How’s everything?” 

“But how does it come that you’re so all-fired 
little, and what’s that strip of paper in your left 
hand, Pete?” countered old Man Gorrs. 

“Being little is one of the advantages of Heaven,” 
said Peter Madonna. “Having small forms, we 
needn’t pay so much for clothes and food and rent 




Old Man Gorrs 


93 


▼ ▼ ▼▼▼▼▼▼▼ ▼ ▼ <r 'w^ r -r 1 ^ «r* 

and lots of other things. Besides, there’s a mighty 
raft of folks in Heaven, Dan, and there wouldn’t be 
room enough to wiggle round in if we wasn’t little. 
This strip of tape in my left hand comes from the 
ticker in my office.” 

“The ticker in your office!” ejaculated Old Man 
Gorrs. “You don’t mean to tell me there’s a Wall 
Street in Heaven, do you, Pete ?” 

“No, Dan,” corrected the diminutive wraith, “you 
don’t get me. There’s no Wall Street in Heaven, of 
course. Mine’s a different sort of ticker. But how’s 
everything with you?” 

“Pretty good, Pete; pretty good, considering,” 
said Old Man Gorrs. “I’ve just submitted a price to 
the new Bingler Manufacturing Company on their 
fall catalogue job. I aimed to lose seventy-five on 
the deal just to beat old Zeb Smith to it. But let’s 
hear about yourself, Pete. What do you—” 

“Seventy-five wasn’t enough of a cut, Dan!” inter¬ 
rupted Peter Madonna. “You should have made 
sure of the job by knocking off at least another hun¬ 
dred and twenty-five. A two-hundred-dollar loss 
would have clinched things. 





94 


Old Man Gorrs 


v 'T ’T ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ *r 

“You ought to see how we cut prices in the print¬ 
ing business in Heaven, Dan. Nothing to do from 
morn till eve but cut prices. 

“I’m running a sheet and job plant. I’m propri¬ 
etor of the Seraphic Sentinel , 23 Angelic Avenue, 
Province of Cherubim, Sixth Heaven. I’m known to 
the Cherubim trade as Printer Number One. Sorry 
I haven’t one of my cards with me, Dan. But 
Gabriel insisted that I put away my heavenly duds 
and wear my earthly garments on this visit. I guess 
he didn’t want me to tip off our new styles. At 
present, between you and me, Dan, small side wings 
predominate, and they’re wearing them higher.” 

“Tell me all about your angelic self from the very 
start, Pete,” urged Old Man Gorrs. 

“Well, to begin with,” said Peter Madonna, “I 
got sent up for three months in Purgatory. That 
sentence made me feel good, for I’d been looking 
for a year at least. 

“At the end of the three months, one morning a 
time-keeping imp perspired over to me and handed 
me a strip of lithographed mica. ‘Your time’s up, 






Old Man Gorrs 


95 


^ t t w ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ v T vr 'T 'T 'T ^r- ^r* 

Pete,’ said he. ‘Here’s your ticket. It’s good for a 
seat in the observation coach on the Hallelujah Lim¬ 
ited, which’ll pull out for Paradise at nine-forty- 
three. You’d better quit work now and cool off a little 
before one of the electric fans. If you sit on the rear 
platform, be sure to bundle up, or you’re apt to 
catch cold. Turn in your fire-proof shovel and as¬ 
bestos mittens to the devil in the locker room and 
he’ll toss you your burial clothes. Sorry to see you 
going so soon. You were just getting a lovely coat 
of tan. But, then, I’ll have the satisfaction of meet¬ 
ing lots of your friends soon. Good-bye, Pete, and 
good sledding!’ 

“I boarded the Hallelujah Limited, and before 
long discovered I had done a mighty wise thing in 
insisting on being buried with my specks on. The 
cinders from that big locomotive were as large as 
forty-eight-point em quads, and I’d surely have lost 
my sight if I hadn’t had my glasses. And when we 
had pulled up to the Pearly Gates and Saint Peter 
had let us in, I was mighty glad that I was wearing 
my overshoes. A couple of hundred white wings 
were scrubbing the golden stairs when I started up, 




96 


Old Man Gorrs 


and if I hadn’t had on my gums, I’d surely have 
caught pneumonia, or the grip, or something. 

“An usher met me at the top and took my name 
and earthly occupation. ‘Peter Madonna, printer,’ 
he repeated. Then he went on. ‘All Heaven is 
divided into seven parts, Pete, and all good printers 
start in at the Third Heaven, with an excellent 
chance for advancement. Ordinary mortals must 
begin at the First Heaven, but it’s different with 
typos. Slip into this set of wings, get under this 
halo, and enter the third door to the left, Pete. 
Hope you’ll like the service.’ 

“Well, Dan, the Third Heaven wasn’t half bad, 
and it was good to feel I’d been a pretty decent sort 
of fellow on earth. And before long I learned 
much about Heaven. As the usher said, it is 
divided into seven parts; and each part is divided 
into countless provinces. In each province in the 
last five Heavens there is one of everything—that is, 
one grocer, one plumber, one flag, and so on—ex¬ 
cept that there are two printers. I’m not sure 
whether this last arrangement is because so many 
printers go to Heaven, or whether it’s just to give 






Old Man Gorrs 


97 


them a chance to underbid each other, or both. 
Anyhow, from the Third Heaven on, there are two 
printers in each province. 

“One of these printers is called Printer Number 
One, and the other, Printer Number Two. Printer 
Number One has a ticker in his office. Every time 
Printer Number Two figures on a job, the ticker 
tips his figure off to Printer Number One. Then 
Printer Number One cuts the other fellow’s bid, gets 
the job, and so enjoys the blissfulness of Heaven.” 

At this point Peter Madonna’s narrative was 
broken into by Old Man Gorrs. 

“Hold on there, Pete,” called the disturber. 
“Something wrong here somewhere. Printer Num¬ 
ber Two is in Heaven, also, isn’t he? If he 
always gets underbid, and so loses out all the time, 
where does he get any sport out of Paradise?” 

“That’s easy,” answered Peter Madonna. 
“Printer Number Two sets his price so all-fired low 
that he’s money ahead in losing the work. So he’s 
tickled because he doesn’t get the job. 

“As I said before, I started in at the Third 
Heaven. Of course, I began as Printer Number 





98 


Old Man Gorrs 


TT T TTTT T TT T TVT T T T T TTV T T" T TT TT T T T T 'T T TT ▼ ▼ "TT" 

Two of my province. But pretty soon they made 
me Printer Number One. I cut and slashed prices 
so well that I got promoted several times in rapid 
succession. Now I’m printer Number One in the 
Province of Cherubim, Sixth Heaven. 

“It’s terribly hard to get into the Seventh 
Heaven, they say. I don’t know much about that 
place, but it’s said that a printer in the Seventh 
gets a job because he owrbids a competitor. And 
I guess that brings my story up to date.” 

When Peter Madonna finished speaking, he made 
several vigorous tugs at the string of tape in his 
left hand. The little office began to fill with paper 
ribbon. 

“What’s the idea, Pete?” asked Old Man Gorrs. 
“Are you expecting something to break soon?” 

“Yes,” declared the little tape-inspector. “At 
seven-thirty this evening, sharp, the Celestial Col¬ 
lapsible M ing and Portable Halo Company of the 
Province of Cherubim, Sixth Heaven, will let its 
semi-annual catalogue contract. I’m watching for 
Printer Number Two’s figure. When I get it I’ll 





Old Man Gorrs 


99 


start on my heavenward way. I wouldn’t miss 
cutting his price for anything in Elysium. 

“But don’t forget what I told you about the 
Bingler job, Dan. If there’s any chance to change 
your bid, cut it at least another hundred and twenty- 
five. Two hundred to the bad should be about right. 
Play safe, Dan, and you’ll skin old Zeb good and 
proper. 

“Gee Whiz! Here’s my dope now. Printer 
Number Two bids $2,953.64. I’ll split that quo¬ 
tation right in two. Don’t forget what I told you, 
Dan. Take no chances. Knock off another hundred 
and twenty-five. Good-bye, Dan; good-bye!” 

• • • • • • • • 

Old Man Gorrs sat up in his chair with a start. 
In the act of coming to, he heard his telephone bell 
ring. Although too confused to realize it at the 
time, a previous ring had been the cause of his awak¬ 
ening. He stole a guilty look toward the type-speci¬ 
men book. Peter Madonna and his spectacles and 
overshoes and watch and string of tape and crazy 
story were gone. 


o » > 





100 


Old Man Gorrs 


Old Man Gorrs retained only a vague impression 
of his dream. However, one item embossed itself 
above the rest—the item in regard to the cutting of 
the Bingler estimate another hundred and twenty-five 
dollars. 

“By gosh!” muttered Old Man Gorrs. “It must 
be a hunch. Hunches often do come with dreams, 
people say. And I’ll play it. I’ll change my bid 
if there’s still a chance to do it!” 

“Yes, Mr. Gorrs,” came the voice of Anderson of 
the Bingler Company through the telephone, after an 
exchange of preliminary remarks. “I’ve just checked 
over the bid of Madonna & Gorrs, and unless there’s 
some mistake in your estimate, I’ll have to give some 
other printery the work.” 

“Just a minute, Mr. Anderson!” called Old Man 
Gorrs. “There is a mistake in my bid, a mistake of 
a hundred and twenty-five dollars.” 

“Ah, I suspected as much, Mr. Gorrs,” came the 
relieved voice of Anderson. “I knew there was some 
mistake somewhere. You see, Mr. Gorrs, before I 
entered the advertising field, I was a printer. I 
learned my trade years ago with Old Half-and-Half 





Old Man Gorrs 


101 


Madonna. Naturally, in a case like this, I’d feel 
justified in throwing the work to my old friend’s busi¬ 
ness associate if all considerations permitted. But 
I saw right away that you must have figured on dif¬ 
ferent stock and inferior workmanship, or you 
couldn’t take the job at your price. If you lived 
up to my specifications, you stood to lose from 
seventy to eighty dollars on the deal at your bid. 

“But your amendment puts a new light on the whole 
thing. A hundred and twenty-five more, you say, 
Mr. Gorrs? Very well, that makes you a few dollars 
higher than your nearest competitor, but I’ve a lot 
of confidence in any fellow that old Peter Madonna 
would pick for a partner, and the Bingler people will 
have nothing but the very best printing obtainable. 
I’ll send over the signed order in the morning. 
Good night, Mr. Gorrs.” 

Old Man Gorrs permitted the telephone to fall 
from his trembling hands onto his desk. He sank 
into his chair a limp mass of unbelief. For several 
mesmerized moments he sat staring into space. Then, 
all at once, he came out of his trance. 





102 


Old Man Gorrs 


▼ ▼ ▼TTTTTT T T T " T T T' T TTT' T T TT TTTT TT TT T T T T TT” 

“Gosh-all-Friday!” he ejaculated. “What do you 
know about that! Some hunch I played! Ander¬ 
son thinks I meant a hundred and twenty-five more. 
I get the job, and I’ll actually make a profit on it, 
too. What did old Pete say about the Seventh 
Heaven? No wonder he doesn’t know much about 
that place. It isn’t in Heaven at all, but right here 
on earth. And you, Dan Gorrs, you old sinner, 
without ever dying and passing through the other 
six to gain it, at this moment are treading the spark¬ 
ling pathways of the Seventh Heaven! 






A n Ode to Punctuation 


PUNCTUATION, that intangible commodity so 
prodigally tossed about and so picturesquely mal¬ 
treated by the brothers and sisters of men, never 
again should vex, if it ever has perturbed, the reader 
of this throbbing oratorio. 

A night or two ago my good friend Dobbs and 
I assembled ourselves in philanthropic array to set¬ 
tle for all time the inglorious hash of punctuation. 
And at the finis of twenty-three minutes of super- 
frontal activity, we had crowded our subject to the 
three-ply hempen strands and made it promise to be¬ 
have. 

“The comma,” said Dobbs, with the solemnity of a 
fourth-chair barber on a Friday evening in July, 
“should be used after meals, before midnight, and 
between the two ends of some sentences. In litera¬ 
ture, it should faithfully follow the words ‘eyether’ 
and ‘mackerel’ and ‘North Dakota,’ and all such ex¬ 
pressions as ‘the viscount bore down on the cole-slaw.’ 

103 


104 


An Ode to Punctuation 


" vvww’vv’v-vvv’trvvwvvww'vwv'rvwvvww* T -* ■* w w v T v V'W' 

And every third line of poetry should be herded into 
place with a comma, excepting free verse, for the 
comma is not gratuitous.” 

“Semi-colons,” I contributed, “should be saved for 
use on semi-cold occasions—such as mentions of a 
New Year’s eve in Kansas, or of formal bridge, or 
ball-game lemonade; while the colon should be used 
with rare discretion.” 

“Parentheses,” said Dobbs, “should be uncovered 
whenever prohi-bourbon is discussed, and question 
marks should head the bill of fare when wifey wel¬ 
comes hubby from the club; while exclamation points 
should be unleashed behind all thoughts of land¬ 
lords or of rent, and dashes should be instituted 
after all things worth catching, save the influenza.” 

“Whereas, the period,” I came back at him, 
“should be applied in wholesale quantities through¬ 
out narrations touching period furniture, and be 
employed with heavy emphasis behind the first six 
bars of verse like this.” 




The Manuscript of a Mangled Mat 

I’M a Slug-Casting Machine Matrix. I’m scarred, 
and battered, and bent. One of my toes is cut and 
bruised, and another is half lopped off. And my 
once-even teeth, now ragged and worn, never again 
will munch the ridges of a Distributor Bar. 

Beside me repose the dissevered remains of my old 
friend Spaceband. His lower anatomy, now split and 
distorted, no longer abides with the upper part of 
himself, which exhibits a sad contusion on the left 
side of its face, and a right shoulder that has come 
through the Rye. 

We are now daily referred to by even the newest 
Dump Kid as “just junk.” 

But this state of things has not always been. 
Spaceband and I once played decent and important 
parts in the scheme of life. No one who knew us in 
those mince-pie days w r ould have guessed that we 
were billed for the hard-luck states we now occupy. 

Nor should we so soon have volplaned to our present 

105 


106 The Manuscript of a Mangled Mat 


trench of failure had not the Regular Op gone on 
that tragic vacation, and the Careless Sub taken his 
trick while he was gone. 

Here’s the scenario: 

As I have said, Spaceband and I once were all to 
the good, and daily more than proved that we were 
there. But that was when the Regular Op was doing 
the Mendelssohn stunt on the Celluloids. 

Spaceband and I were strong for the Regular Op. 
He knew how to treat a fellow, he did. Twice each 
day he’d remove the metal from the Spacebands’ left 
cheeks, and then give them a graphite massage. And 
always he was careful not to damage us Mats by try¬ 
ing to use too many at once. And the whole bunch 
of us, take it from me, weren’t slow in showing him 
that we understood. The Spacebands w T ere on their 
toes all the time, ready at once to respond to their 
calls, and all of us Mats were simply running over 
with pep to help him keep the Old Mill rambling. 

Life was one well-rendered symphony until the 
Regular Op took that vacation. But when he went 
away and the Careless Sub came on, things at once 
stampeded to the pink-eyed poodles. 





The Manuscript of a Mangled Mat 107 


I believe that I figured in our opening trouble with 
the Careless Sub. When he first called on me to 
drop, I nearly died out loud, for his touch was all to 
the circus stake driver. 

That reception was fierce enough, but was straw¬ 
berry shortcake to what came later. About the fifth 
or sixth time that I responded to his call, I found 
myself at the rear end of a tight line in the Assem¬ 
bling Elevator. One point of the Star Wheel was 
digging into my left side, and it was all that I could 
do to stand the pressure. But even worse was due to 
happen. 

Having pulled this outrage, the Careless Sub next 
put across a downright crime. He backed up the 
Star Wheel a little (which felt mighty good to yours 
truly), raised the line a trifle, and then—Oh, Julia! 
—set me down on the ragged edge of the Assembling 
Elevator. 

“What are you trying to celebrate?” I screamed, 
as the line of us started for the First Elevator Jaws. 
“Don’t you know that I’ll never survive such a 
squeeze ?” 






108 The Manuscript of a Mangled Mat 

'T T T T "T T"T" T "T ▼ '▼"T T T"T ' T T T TTT ▼ T T T T T T T '▼ "T T V T T T f 

The Careless Sub disregarded my questions, of 
course. I set my teeth with matly grit as the line of 
us started toward the Vise Jaws. Then—Oh, 
Bertha!—the pressure on all sides became so fierce 
that I fainted dead away. 

When the shaking of the Second Elevator brought 
me to, I was a living abscess. I ached all over, but 
even more so about the toes. One of them was cut 
half away, and another split and swollen something 
awful. 

But sick and crippled as I was, I was Irish mad 
and raging for revenge. And right then and there 
I promised the whole world that I’d get my abuser if 
I never did another thing. 

“And I’m going to start right now to get your 
murderous goat,” I groaned, as I entered the Dis¬ 
tributor Box. “I’ll be doggoned if I’ll work in this 
condition. I’ll stick right here in this Box, and if 
you don’t like it, try to stop me!” 

And stick I did. After another line or two of 
sympathizing Mats had come up behind, the good old 
stoical Arm made my grievance his own, and went on 
strike, too. 





The Manuscript of a Mangled Mat 109 


The Careless Sub uncoiled a procession of unsan¬ 
itary epithets—and dubbed away ten minutes get¬ 
ting things started again. 

u Go right ahead, fellows,” I shouted to the Arm 
and the Mats, as the Distributor Box was being re¬ 
placed. “Keep right on working just as though 
nothing had happened. I’ll get this fresh bird’s 
goat. Just leave things to me. I’m all in now, but 
a few days’ rest on this Back Tray will put me in 
shape to be operated on; and then I’ll come back. 
Go right ahead, fellows. Just leave things to me.” 

At the end of three days of unfitness I was placed 
in a small vise, and treated with a little three-cor¬ 
nered file. The process hurt like fury, but I knew the 
rubbing down would qualify me to square things w r ith 
the Careless Sub—now my solitary aim in life. 

Next morning I was herded into the Magazine 
again, and received a joyous welcome home. Of 
course I was glad to get back among my relatives 
once more, and to tell all about my injuries and 
operation,; but the thought of revenge had first 
place in my mind. The Careless Sub was a marked 
boob. 






110 The Manuscript of a Mangled Mat 


I put my plan into operation at once. From 
the very moment the Careless Sub threw in the 
switch, I got in my subtle work. 

Along about noon a few proofs came back for 
renovation. Talk about your railroad maps! Those 
proofs would have made a freight-checker’s list 
look like a blank sheet of paper. They were so 
cut up I could hardly look at them without blushing. 

I, personally, had contributed many marks to 
each sheet, but there were countless other multila- 
tions in evidence which had me guessing at the time. 

The Careless Sub looked over the proofs, and once 
again released some lurid language. Then I was 
lifted from the Machine and placed on the Sorts 
Tray. 

A few seconds later I heard a well-remembered 
voice near at hand. The voice was that of my old 
friend Spaceband. He, also, occupied a place on 
the Sorts Tray. 

“For the love of clean proofs, Mat,” questioned 
my good old friend, “how did you get here? They 
told me you were laid up for fair, and would be off 
the job for many days to come.” 





The Manuscript of a Mangled Mai 111 


Despite Spaceband’s flippant tone, there was a 
trace of anguish in his voice. I looked him over very 
closely. The poor fellow’s left cheek was black and 
blue and flecked with metal, and he was nearly bent 
double with the cramps. 

“Don’t you worry about me, Wedgy, old chap,” 
said I. “I’m all right. This operating excuse has in¬ 
jured me some, but I’ve squared things up pretty well. 
Have you taken a slant at those latest proofs of his 
yet? Well, maybe I didn’t hand it to him, eh? 
Every time I appeared in one of his lines, I hung 
down just as low as I could, to be out of alignment. 
But you look pretty groggy, old chap. What’s the 
big trouble with you? Has the Careless Sub been 
abusing you, too?” 

“Abusing is the proper term,” sighed Spaceband. 
“That bird’s been treating my family pretty rough 
all along. He never takes the metal from our left 
cheeks, and we haven’t had a graphite massage since 
the Dead Sea took sick. 

“And do you know what this bird did to me, Mat? 
He put me away out toward the front of a long tight 
line with no other Wedges to help justify. 





112 The Manuscript of a Mangled Mat 


“ ‘Say,’ I yelled, as soon as I grasped the drift 
of things, ‘don’t you know that one lone Spaceband 
can’t have any luck away out at the front of a long 
tight line? Didn’t the correspondence school you 
sneaked out of teach you that? Give a fellow a 
chance, won’t you?’ 

“Of course my oratory did no good. The Justifi¬ 
cation Block came up with a bang, and I’ve been en¬ 
tertaining cramps in my abdomen ever since. 

“But don’t let yourself think that that ended mat¬ 
ters, Mat. The rest of my family witnessed my un- 
wedgely treatment, and at once took to the blooming 
w r arpath. 

“You ask me if I’ve seen those latest proofs. In¬ 
deed I have, old chap. You did your part, I know; 
but how about those countless other markings? 
That’s where the Spaceband group comes in. Those 
marks are hairlines, old chap, hairlines. Every 
Spaceband did his noblest. These cramps hurt worse 
than molten metal, but the sugar-coated revenge 
that now is mine more than offsets every bit of that 
pain.” 





The Manuscript of a Mangled Mat 113 

‘wvv wvw' rvvv'vvwvvvvvvv’VTrvwvwvwvwvvwwvv -w w T 1 ^ 

No sooner had Spaceband finished speaking than a 
new voice edged into our talk. Hot-headed Plunger 
began to speak. 

“Here’s where I come in,” growled Plunger. “You 
two fellows have had your little comebacks, but how 
about me? Don’t you know that I’ll have to recast 
each one of those marked lines? I don’t mind doing 
lots of straight casting, as I used to do without com¬ 
plaint when the Regular Op was performing, but 
this Careless Sub party appropriates my llama with 
his big blocks of corrections. He must have learned 
his trade in a boiler factory. His proofs are always 
fierce enough, but you two had to make things even 
worse. Fine way to treat a co-worker, I say!” 

“Old scout,” I apologized, “it does look as though 
Spaceband and I have made things rather hard for 
you. In our desire for revenge, we overlooked the 
fact that our retaliative actions might embarrass a 
fellow-worker. However, it seems to me that, instead 
of bawling us out for trying to show up the Care¬ 
less Sub, you ought to help us settle his hash for 
keeps. Doesn’t that seem fair enough?” 




114 The Manuscript of a Mangled Mat 


“By jingo!” exclaimed Plunger, “it does, at that. 
Mat. Accept my apology, fellows. I’m a hot-headed 
chap, and often speak prematurely when aroused. 
But how’ll we fix this operating four-flush, boys?” 

“I have it,” flashed Spaceband. “Listen to this 
one.” And my old pal whispered his scheme to us. 

Spaceband’s preliminary plans worked like a well- 
treated Machine. He caught the Foreman’s eye, got 
fixed up good, and soon was back on the job again. 
I wiggled and twisted like a third-degree victim, fell 
from the Sorts Tray to the floor, sparkled until I 
caught the Dump Kid’s gaze, and before long was 
back in my Channel once more. 

Several minutes later I stood toward the front of 
a loose line with Spaceband right before me. In¬ 
stinctively, I knew that the big stunt was about 
to be. 

“Get set, Mat,” whispered Spaceband. “The time 
for action has arrived.” 

We went up and over and down according to the 
book. The first justification took place in routine 
fashion, and then I received a sharp poke in the 
right ribs—the signal! 





The Manuscript of a Mangled Mat 115 

' VT,r ' TTTT *^^*yTTT T T T TT T TT TTT TV TT T- y TT 'T' T T T T r 

In a flash I twisted about with all my might, and 
so did my good old pal. The strain was pretty fierce, 
but we were game. Just as I was beginning to think 
I’d have to give up or burst, Spaceband gave a loud 
yell. 

“Let her go!” he screamed, and Plunger dived 
into the Well with fury. 

*•••••• 

The operators round our shop still refer to that 
gorgeous squirt in terms of awe. Metal went all over 
Machine and floor and boob. The Careless Sub 
emerged from our revenge with many painful burns 
and nine dollars’ w T orth of ruined trousers. 

As sore as a pet stone bruise, the Careless Sub 
forced our congealed line from the First Elevator 
Jaws and tried to pry us apart with a rough screw¬ 
driver. One savage jab wrenched the right shoulder 
of poor Spaceband. Another badly split his lower 
body, twisting it horribly, and separating it from 
his upper being. My poor pal died before my very 
eyes. 

But soon I had personal pains to suffer. The Care¬ 
less Sub slipped his rough screw-driver along my left 



116 The Manuscript of a Mangled Mat 

’ V T r T T T ^ ' T ' T TT T YT TT T TTT TTTTTT TT TTTTT TT TT T T r 

side and pulled sharply. My body was scarred and 
battered frightfully. A succeeding twist tore and 
lacerated my teeth unmercifully, and another made 
me a distorted being. 

And then the Foreman came up. He took things 
in at a glance (proofs, and squirt, and behavior) 
and proceeded to get super-hardboiled. 

“When you came to work here,” said the Fore¬ 
man, “you certainly made a big mistake. You must 
have confused this shop with the one three doors 
down the street. There’s a big wooden horseshoe over 
the sidewalk in front of that other place, and many 
forges and anvils and heavy sledges inside. I feel 
sure they could use you down there. 

“I’ll stand for unclean proofs when I think a man 
will do better later, and I don’t see anything very 
terrible in an occasional squirt. But when a fellow 
turns out proofs like yours, and abuses his Machine 
as you have this one—that’s another matter. You’re 
the most finished operating fiasco I’ve ever wit¬ 
nessed. If I’m ever sent to Congress, I’m going to 
introduce a bill putting a bounty on birds like you; 
and, believe me, there won’t be any closed-season 





The Manuscript of a Mangled Mat 117 

' ^ T T -V- * ******•*•**■ * -r- t- ▼ T'T 'T T 'vr T’ y ■r t ▼ t W’“ Tr~y r~ * 

provision, either. There’s a check waiting for you 
out in front, even if you don’t deserve to cash it. 
You’d better evaporate while the chances are good.” 

Poor Spaceband is gone, and I am hopelessly 
crippled. We’re “just junk.” But it affords me par¬ 
tial satisfaction to know that the one who brought 
about our downfall got what was coming to him, 
and at least an occasional fleeting respite from pain 
to recall that we helped to tie the can to the Care¬ 
less Sub. 





He leaned over the fence, and I prepared to hear more 





















































The Tale of a Tragic Typo 

PROJECTING itself from the bustle of city life 
into the calmness of the country-land beyond is a 
specimen of highroad along which I delight in galli¬ 
vanting on Saturday afternoons when the w T eather 
is reasonable and I am enduring a respite from 
labor. The thoroughfare is such a handsome one in 
the main that its passing by an institution for the 
mentally unwell does not at all deter me from trav¬ 
ersing the roadway whenever circumstances seem 
propitious. On the contrary, I even derive pleasure 
of a sort from occasionally stopping and talking 
to certain harmless inmates who happen to be stroll¬ 
ing near the institution’s fence, before pursuing my 
day-dreaming into the merry green fields ahead. 

There is one old chap for whom I cherish an 
affinity, and I never let an opportunity pass to re¬ 
gale him with optimistic greetings and cheerful 

adieus en passant. In his pre-chaotic days he had 

119 


120 The Tale of a Tragic Typo 

-* r ▼ t ttt t tt t ttttt t tt -t t t tt t t t t ttttt' tt ttt ttt 

been a cut-rate printer, and the sorry condition of 
his mind had resulted from excessive joy when one 
day he discovered that he had come out even on a 
finished job. 

On my latest tour along that favored rialto I 
met and talked with the ancient printer of the bi¬ 
ased outlook on life. Observing my approach, the 
old fellow draped the upper part of himself over 
two feet or more of picket fence and called out to 
me in a gentle, kindly manner, “Ask me a question.” 

“Very well, my friend,” I replied, “I shall do so. 
Would you advise me to enter the printing busi¬ 
ness ?” 

The old fellow placed a handful of succulent gray 
whiskers in his mouth and munched them piously 
and musically for a minute or two. Then he restored 
the moistened tapestry to its pendent state and 
spoke again. 

“It all depends,” he said. 

“On what?” I asked. 

“On whether or not you have a daughter Minerva 
who’s fond of smoked herring and in love with a 
scientific poet named Elmer.” 




The Tale of a Tragic Typo 121 


“Why, of course; to be sure,” I replied, sooth¬ 
ingly, seating myself on a boulder by the wayside in 
the hope of hearing more. “Your explanation is very 
clear, indeed, and I understand you perfectly, of 
course. But, then, you and I, you know, are excep¬ 
tionally brilliant persons, and things which appear 
quite simple to us might mystify others very much. 
So suppose we do some supposing and imagine that 
a merely average fellow were audibly to wonder 
* what a herring-and-poet-loving daughter Minerva 
had to do with the proposition. How would you ex¬ 
plain the thing to him?” 

“Why I’d tell him the story,” said the printer. 

“Very well, then, my friend,” I suggested. “Let’s 
do some additional supposing and pretend that 
there really is a third person present who’s never 
heard the story and would like very much to do so.” 

“You’re on,” said the ancient typographer—and 
proceeded to emit an Arabian Night which the 
Arabians had failed to include in their nocturnal 
symposium. 

“Once there was a young man,” said the story 
teller, “who was in a quandary as to whether he 








122 The Tale of a Tragic Typo 


should enter the employ of a hardware merchant or 
enlist himself as a printer’s devil. He weighed the 
proposition many days, and at length decided on 
the former. And in the doing thereof he uncon¬ 
sciously brought about the tragic demise of two 
splendid young people and de]3rived the world of 
the benefits of wireless telegraphy for the dozen or 
more years just preceding its invention. 

“The young man applied himself in earnest, and 
rose rapidly in the field of hardware, until, at 
length, he became a partner in the business. Mar¬ 
riage followed, and in the course of time a daughter 
w T as born, whom they named Minerva in honor of 
the battleship Texas . 

“Sweet Minerva flourished splendidly and grew 
to be a nice young person. And at length she be¬ 
came acquainted with a scientific poet named Elmer. 

“Minerva and Elmer came to love each other in 
the good old story-book way, including the cruel 
misunderstanding which caused her to rebuff her 
heart’s delight, and him to remove himself to an 
adjacent town and unconsolable anguish. 





The Tale of a Tragic Typo 123 


“Being a poet and in love there was only one 
thing for him to do: to deport himself in a way 
which would foster the happiness of his dear Min¬ 
erva. 

“He at once decided that a gentle note of explana¬ 
tion from him to the object of his love would cause 
her increased unhappiness by parading his own 
gentleness and thus suggesting that she had acted 
wrongly in sending him away, whereas a harsher 
note would diminish her sorrow by seeming to reveal 
his inner nature and thus convincing her that she 
had acted wisely in bidding him depart. And as 
Minerva must not be made unhappy, the harsher 
note was written and sent. 

“Later he decided to abandon his scientific pur¬ 
suits, for fear that success on his part might cause 
Minerva to regret having discarded him, and Min¬ 
erva must not be made unhappy. And at last the 
poet who for years deprived the universe of wire¬ 
less telegraphy by abandoning his scientific studies, 
concluded that his inglorious death would decrease 
Minerva’s sorrow, my implying that she hadn’t lost 







124 The Tale of a Tragic Typo 

"T ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ V V • • + W V v V W W W W V V W W W W V V W V <9 w * 

much, so he read one of his own poems and the city 
took care of his remains. 

“All of these little things,” the speaker contin¬ 
ued, “were very nice of Elmer. But they weren’t at 
all necessary, and didn’t make for the happiness of 
his dear Minerva. For Minerva already had ar¬ 
ranged with herself to recall her banished admirer, 
by the time that the smoked herring was being served 
at the supper table on the evening of the quarrel; 
but in negotiating her favorite sea-going dish, a 
series of sobs became entangled with a section of 
piscatorial vertebrae and poor dear repentant Min¬ 
erva passed chokingly and abruptly to the land of 
the everlasting herring. 

“And so,” concluded the story teller, “as I said 
before, the tragic demise of two young persons and 
the temporary withholding of wureless resulted 
from Minerva’s father’s entering the hardware busi¬ 
ness instead of becoming a printer.” 

“And if Minerva’s father had become a printer—” 
I suggested. 

“Then everything would have been fine for Min¬ 
erva and Elmer and the worlds of science and 




The Tale of a Tragic Typo 125 


poetry,” was the answer. “For then there wouldn’t 
have been any herring on the table for Minerva to 
have choked on, because her father couldn’t have 
afforded the herring.” 






The Reformation of Jupiter Watts 


4 ^^ 

Shortly after nine o’clock on a newly minted 
morning in September, Jupiter Watts, manager of 
the Jupiter Watts Printing Company, sat at his 
office desk sedulously practicing the profession of 
being eccentric. 

Until a few w T eeks before, Jupiter Watts had 
borne the outward aspects of an ordinary person. 
He had deported himself as do the usual run of civ¬ 
ilized male human beings. He had seemed a casual 
specimen of prevalent masculine humanity. Then he 
had come across a booklet of quotations. Within 
the pedantic recesses of that little volume Jupiter 
Watts’s all-observing eyes had fastened upon this 
line: “Eccentricity is the mark of greatness.” 

For a number of years prior to the reading of 
that quotation, Jupiter Watts had been very much 
aw’are of his own greatness. On more occasions than 
a few, introspection had convinced him that he was 
endowed with extraordinary mental ability. The 

126 


The Reformation of Jupiter Watts 127 

V T'-y T- yv -y TTTTTTTTTVTTrTTT 

reading of that quoted sentence had suggested an 
overlooked privilege, and had set him to studying 
the difficult problem of cause and effect. Although 
he had failed to satisfy his higher intelligence as to 
which of the two accomplishments—greatness and 
eccentricity—was the cause and which the ef¬ 
fect, of one thing he had been made quite certain: 
that the two virtues must and should be inseparable. 
Therefore, he had reasoned, possessing one of them, 
it was his natural prerogative, as well as duty to 
the uninitiated public, to go in for the other. So 
Jupiter Watts had decided to become eccentric. 

Outwardly he expressed that eccentricity by wear¬ 
ing a confirmed scowl, and by the nearly constant 
smoking of long, dark stogies. And he began each 
day at the office by reading a page or two in his 
booklet of quotations. 

As Jupiter Watts sat at his office desk on the 
sparkling autumnal morning referred to, his state of 
mind was even more turbulent than usual. 

The causes of his extra uncongeniality were sev¬ 
eral and motley. Two weeks earlier his crack im- 
positor had walked out in a huff, and no satisfactory 




128 The Reformation of Jupiter Watts 


substitute had as yet been secured. Out in the com¬ 
posing-room the typesetting machine refused to 
function properly, and its operator was vainly try¬ 
ing to set it a-right. In the pressroom the foreman 
was unsuccessfully attempting to turn out an order 
of letterheads according to the wishes of a fussy- 
though-valued customer. And the preceding day’s 
late mail had brought to his desk, escorted by a 
retinue of duns from clamorous creditors, a state¬ 
ment from his banker informing him of the over- 
drawal of his account. 

Just as Jupiter Watts completed the perusal of 
the quotation, “There’s nothing new under the sun,” 
the office door swung inward and revealed one hun¬ 
dred and ninety-seven pounds of well-dressed, affable 
and self-confident manhood. The large caller breezed 
into the office and deposited a brief case on the 
counter. He nodded pleasantly in the direction of 
Calkins, the book-keeper, at work near one end of 
the room, and smiled warmly down at Jupiter Watts. 
Then he produced a small white card and placed it 
before the proprietor. 






The Reformation of Jupiter Watts 129 

* ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ’ ▼ ▼ ▼ t r t ▼ ▼¥ ▼▼ ▼ ▼¥ ■ ▼ ' ▼ r- r t t t t t tt ’t- t t t t t t 1 

“No doubt you are Mr. Watts,” boomed the big 
man, with a spray of merriment rising from the 
surf of his rolling voice. “Jingle is my name, Mr. 
Watts—Jasper P. Jingle. I represent the Printer's 
Trade Journal , and I’ve dropped in to see about 
your subscription, which expired several issues ago. 
I feel sure that your failure to renew at once was 
not due to a desire on your part to discontinue our 
publication. May I put you down for another year, 
Mr. Watts?” 

Jasper P. Jingle settled into a chair beside the 
manager and smilingly awaited a response. 

Jupiter Watts put his favorite booklet in a 
pigeon-hole in his desk. He removed a long, dark 
stogy from his mouth and carefully placed its ashed 
and lighted end on the surface of his interviewer’s 
card. Large, good-natured, self-confident people 
were displeasing to the little man. Physical bulk was 
beyond his achievement, and so was an affront to his 
genius. Affability and self-reliance on the part of 
another in his presence were evidence of unappre¬ 
ciative and disrespectful regard. This fellow must be 







130 The Reformation of Jupiter Watts 

r^r r t t 't t ▼ t y t t t t t t ' t t t t t t t ' t t t ' t t ▼ ▼ t t- t w v w w w w " w * 

enlightened at once, and Jupiter Watts resolved to 
do his duty. 

“No, Mr. Jingle,” declared the preserver of tra¬ 
ditions, “you may not. Furthermore, you are mis¬ 
taken. I purposely permitted my subscription to 
expire. I wished to discontinue it. I do not care to 
renew. And I’m a very busy man.” 

Jasper P. Jingle continued to smile. His self-con¬ 
fidence refused to desert him. He had met with such 
receptions before; and in each case had been taught 
that such persons were much less busy than anxious 
to argue. So he pursued the psychological clew. 

“Have you discovered something objectionable 
about the Printer's Trade Journal , Mr. Watts?” he 
solicited. 

“Yes,” exulted Jupiter Watts, leaping at the 
chance to exhibit his powers of argumentation, and 
feeling doubly strong in the knowledge of his latest 
quotation, “I have discovered something objection¬ 
able about it. The whole thing’s objectionable. It has 
taken up too much of my time. Why should I waste 
my precious moments in reading about a lot of 





The Reformation of Jupiter Watts 131 


things I already know? Don’t you realize that 
‘there’s nothing new under the sun’?” 

The trade-journal man’s smile broadened. His 
self-confidence surged to full capacity. Jupiter 
Watts was proving the rule by not being the ex¬ 
ception. 

Disregarding the little man’s grotesque questions, 
Jasper P. Jingle began to apply the principles of 
salesmanship. 

“Aside from its consuming too much of your time, 
Mr. Watts, are there any other objections to the 
Printer’s Trade Journal?” 

Jupiter Watts faced squarely about and mobilized 
his legions of pessimism. 

“Indeed there are,” he frowned, “and I’ll enumer¬ 
ate a few of them. 

“To begin with, in your ‘Commercial Department’ 
a bunch of fellows who know much less than they 
think they do try to tell us printers how to run our 
business. I don’t know whether the writers really 
believe what they write about, or whether they sim¬ 
ply do it for whatever money they get out of it; but 






132 The Reformation of Jupiter Watts 


I do know this one thing, and that is that they don’t 
influence me any. I merely laugh at their foolish 
statements. With the exception of a few things ac¬ 
tually demanded by present-day business, I’m satis¬ 
fied to run my shop the way my father did before 
me and his father before him. None of these new¬ 
fangled notions for me. So much for your ‘Commer¬ 
cial Department.’ 

“And this same criticism holds good for your ‘Me¬ 
chanical Department,’ only more so. Aside from be¬ 
ing everything unfavorable said about the other, 
your ‘Mechanical Department’ is even more ridicu¬ 
lous. Some of the suggestions offered in that part 
of your journal aren’t so terribly bad; but we al¬ 
ready know about most of them. They aren’t at all 
new or novel. I’ve come to the conclusion that the 
fellows who w r rite for that department are mostly 
young and inexperienced and simply bursting with 
curiosity to see their juvenile names in print. 

“Your ‘Book Review Department’ is a groaning 
joke. The fellow who conducts it doesn’t hurt him¬ 
self any, I’ll bet. Instead of thoroughly reading a 
submitted book, he must simply flip a quarter into 





The Reformation of Jupiter Watts 133 

TTTTT-rTTTTTT?TT<T?TTy T- T ~ T T T TT T T TTTT T T T TTr 

the air. If the coin turns up heads, your reviewer 
pulls off a lot of encomiums about the volume under 
discussion. If the piece of change comes down tails, 
he pans the book. But when he happens to be broke 
(which ought to be often), I suppose he’s forced to 
the laborious task of reading part of each preface} 

“Whenever I’m feeling particularly down-hearted, 
I glance at your ‘Editorial Pages’ and immediately 
am cheered up by the realization that your editorial 
writer is worse off than I. Of all the platitudinous 
drivel that ever was printed over perfectly inno¬ 
cent pages, I never saw the beat. Still, those pages 
have to be filled with something, and I suppose it’s 
just as well to do it that way as to use a lot of 
other foolish stuff. 

“Your ‘News Department’ is about as newsy as a 
last year’s almanac. The poor correspondents who 
send in items mean well enough, I suppose; but they 
don’t know very much about news. Who gives a 
whoop whether Bill Jones, who just got canned from 
Brown & Brown’s, now has a job in the shipping 
room of the Shiftless Printery? And what good does 
it do the average underfed printer to read about a 



134 The Reformation of Jupiter Watts 

v *r , '*>'* vv^' T y r T"T , ’Nrv^r^ ▼ v v ^ v '▼. ▼ ▼ T ▼* 

bunch of equally involved typos, in some distant part 
of the country, getting some unsuspecting caterer 
to stand them off for a big banquet? It doesn’t ap¬ 
pease the reader’s hunger any; and I always did 
think it a mighty mean trick to crow over a poor 
fellow in public after fleecing him. 

“Your ‘Advertising Pages’ are—well, they’re ad¬ 
vertising pages. Nobody looks for, or expects to 
receive, reliable information from such a source, I 
guess; so what’s the difference? I’m not saying your 
advertisers are avoiders of the truth; but I just 
leave it to you to say whether or not you can rea¬ 
sonably expect a buyer of space to run down his 
own product or services.” 

Jupiter Watts paused. 

“Anything else?” smiled the trade-journal man. 

“You can just bet there is,” continued the gentle 
critic. “There’s a lot of other objections I might 
make, but I’ll just specify one more and call it a 
day’s work. I believe I’d even be able to put up with 
the rest of your journal if it weren’t for this one 
thing. Once in a while you run a feature story by a 
fellow named Jack Edwards. That’s the thing that 





The Reformation of Jupiter Watts 135 

^ W V W V ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ VVV'V'VWVV ■* — «T 

makes me see red. I suppose that fellow thinks he’s 
humorous. He’s about as funny as a mausoleum. He 
knows considerably less about writing than the av¬ 
erage school girl. All his plots and situations are 
swiped from regular writers, and he hasn’t even 
the ability to disguise the fact. His style is some¬ 
thing awful. Most of his sentences are too involved, 
he uses too many adjectives and pompous meta¬ 
phors, and always tries to show off his lop-sided 
vocabulary. Quite often he resorts to the cheap trick 
of fastening crazy names to his impossible charac¬ 
ters. You surely must charge him more than or¬ 
dinary rates for running his stuff.” 

Just as Jasper P. Jingle was about to make a 
cheerful reply, the foreman of the pressroom hur¬ 
ried into the office. A smile of self-approval paren¬ 
thesized his inky nose. 

“I’ve got it at last, boss,” beamed the foreman, 
exhibiting a letterhead for the manager’s inspection. 
“And it would take an engraver to know it for an 
imitation.” 

“By Jove!” exclaimed the trade-journal man, 
“that’s a fine-looking piece of printing. It surely has 





136 The Reformation of Jupiter Watts 


an engraved look. But did you get that effect direct 
from type?” 

“Sure thing,” replied the workman. “A cranky 
customer wanted a letterhead with an engraved ap¬ 
pearance, but didn’t want to stand the cost of hav¬ 
ing one cut. For a while I was stumped. Then I re¬ 
membered something that made things easy. I re¬ 
called having read an article on ‘Imitation of En¬ 
graving’ in a back number of the Printer's Trade 
Journal .” 

Coincident with Jupiter Watts’s curt dismissal of 
the pressman, the smile diminished on the face of 
Jasper P. Jingle. Levity on his part now, he knew, 
would spoil everything. An I-told-you-so attitude 
would never do in the present case. The trade-jour¬ 
nal man confirmed his knowledge of psychology and 
salesmanship by rising and preparing to depart. 

“Well, Mr. Watts,” he said, “I’ve enjoyed a pleas¬ 
ant little chat with you, even if we didn’t close 
things to my entire satisfaction. But I’ll drop in 
again before leaving town; and at that time I hope 
to secure your name again for our stencil maker. 
Good day, Mr. Watts.” 






The Reformation of Jupiter Watts 137 

The large visitor picked up his brief case, nodded 
smilingly, and took his unruffled departure. 

Jupiter Watts permitted his professional frown 
to disappear, and his face almost took on a grin as 
he resumed smoking. He could not remember when 
he had met a large, good-natured, self-confident man 
more difficult to dislike. He was almost sorry that 
the affable caller had left so soon. Perhaps if the 
man had only— 

But a sudden volume of sound registered itself on 
the platen of his musings. From the composing-room 
came a rattling melody which testified to the type¬ 
setting machine’s being in working trim again. 

The disciple of things eccentric made his rapid, 
bizarre and smoky way to the machine’s operator. 

“How did you locate the trouble?” questioned 
the manager. 

“By reading and applying an article read some 
time ago in the Printer's Trade Journal precisely 
stated the precise operator. 

On the way back to the front office, Jupiter Watts 
was intercepted by the foreman of the composing- 


room. 





138 The Reformation of Jupiter Watts 


“I’ve good news for you, boss,” drawled the lanky 
overseer. “Dick Black, the star stone-man at the 
Acme plant, is coming to work for us tomorrow. I 
didn’t know old Dick wanted to make a change until 
I answered his blind ad. in the latest issue of the 
Printer's Trade Journal." 

Barely had the bewildered manager regained his 
big desk when Calkins, the book-keeper, approached 
in his shirt sleeves and a happy frame of mind. 

“This morning certainly is a record-breaker for 
collections, Mr. Watts,” Calkins announced, rubbing 
his dimpled left cheek with his pudgy left hand. 
“We’ve never received so many good checks in a 
single delivery before. And I think it’s all traceable 
to one source. Day before yesterday I launched a 
collection scheme I’d read about in the Printer's 
Trade Journal , and it has worked wonders.” 

Calkins went back to his orders and checks, leav¬ 
ing the little manager marooned in a fog of stogy 
smoke. 

Jupiter Watts did some deep, swift and emotional 
thinking. All at once his ridiculous attitude was 
made known to him. The present enlightening chain 




The Reformation of Jupiter Watts 139 

of circumstances had penetrated his blatant egotism 
and rung the bell of his sense of humor. A man-size 
smile was born within his heart, and its twin brother 
soon glowed upon his face. 

“If only it weren’t for that Edwards fellow,” he 
muttered. “But maybe I’ve been a trifle hard on him, 
at that. Anyhow, there’s no law to make me read his 
stuff, so here goes!” 

Jupiter Watts drew the quotation booklet from 
its stall in his desk and opened it to his favorite 
quotation. With emphatic delight, he ran a heavy 
blue pencil through the line, “Eccentricity is the 
mark of greatness,” and above it inscribed, “Com¬ 
mon sense is the mark of wisdom.” 





Ad.-Venturously Speaking 


4 ^ 4 ^ 

B ELIEVE me,” smirked a full-page newspaper 
ad. to a modest little two-column thing, “I slice the 
congealed aqua. Mine is the dazzling and accomplish¬ 
ing life. When I step into public view, I monopo¬ 
lize the gazes and start the legal tender rolling 
home. 

“People make a big stir over me, and I play odd 
tricks with their wallets. Whether they would or 
not, I make ’em listen. I unlimber the sixty-point 
ordnance, and lay down an italic barrage. I tell it to 
’em, from consomme to almonds. I grab their atten¬ 
tion with pictures. My paragraphs startle their in¬ 
terest; my panels ignite their desire, and my prices 
take charge of their actions. 

“I step out once, and a three-days’ wonder is on. 
Our doormen and clerks all are kept on their toes, 
and our registers clanging quite merrily. 

“Don’t you wish you could cut as much ice?” 

140 


Ad.-Venturously Speaking 141 

*** V * V W V V V V V V 'V 'V V V V W W V W W V V V W W W V * V V V W W W V V V 

“Mine’s a less turbulent life,” said the meek little 
two-column ad., “but the things that I do aren’t 
slow. I’m always on deck with my something to say, 
and I say it one thing at a time. 

“I never butt in, but I get the attention, at that. 
Many folks disadmire being swept from their feet. 
They’d much rather think for themselves. I’m wise 
—and deal mostly in hunches. 

“You move lots of stuff, but it isn’t your smart¬ 
ness that moves it. It’s moved by your hulking 
strength. You’re not an appeal, you’re a summonser. 
You don’t invite ’em, you grab ’em. You’re a knock¬ 
out, and, like a knock-out, you’re only a once-in-a- 
whiler. 

“But I keep the business wheels turning. I dis¬ 
pose of the staples of stock. I inform our old friends 
of the latest, and add a few new ones each month. I 
draw the good will and the profits, pay salaries, 
and settle the rent. And you owe your existence to 
me!” 

“Hold on there, you two,” said a solemn and wise 
editorial. “You’re filling the air full of space. Each 




142 


Ad.-Venturously Speaking 


one of you birds has a mission in life that cannot 
be filled by the other. You both keep the customers 
coming, but do it in different ways. So get wise to 
yourselves, and quit squabbling—and simply keep 
ad.-ing away.” 





How Printing Came to Lovely Coffin 


According to the erudite chaps, opposites at¬ 
tract. Maybe this is what brought my old friend, 
Doc Claypool, a printer of the long ago, into the 
Republic office that Sunday morning to have a look 
at one of the latest-model Linotypes, the most up- 
to-date thing in the world of print. 

We all know how it is that the sight of some new 
device often sets the mind to drawing up visions of 
“the good old days that are gone”; so I was pretty 
well prepared for the reminiscent look which soon 
appeared on the old-timer’s face, and for a recital 
of the sort that caused all of us fellows there in the 
composing-room to get home late for the holiday 
dinner—for the story of how printing came to the 
border town of Lovely Coffin. 

“It’s some strange, but gospel certain,” old Doc 
began, “how good luck sometimes comes riding into 
town on a paint pony and full of intemperate spirits 

143 



Three-Blast Barnaby flourished a big roll of financial carpet. 







Printing Came to Lovely Coffin 145 

T T T T T T T-^ T T T T T T ~ T T T T 'T T TT T ▼ T TTTT ¥ tT T T r T " t 

and immodest remarks. The welcoming observer 
just never could opine by looking at the ominous 
visitor that prosperity of the civic variety was mov¬ 
ing in; and it’s only when the greeting party looks 
back on the welcoming through the field glass of ac¬ 
quired experience that he begins to arrange the 
cards in their correct order and gets the straight 
of things. 

“And that’s the way it was with the sweltering 
town of Lovely Coffin on that hot day in July when 
Three-Blast Barnaby, from the no-good camp of 
Steeltrap, galloped into Liquid Street and pulled 
up before my hotel and general rest resort, the 
Sleeping Spaniel. 

“Bare-Knuckled Courtney and Oily Jim Whitney 
were collected there on the front stoop with me when 
this Barnaby man arrived, and none of us had the 
symptom of a notion at the time that his coming 
was to prove a blessing for the town of Lovely 
Coffin. 

“Barnaby put forth a trio of loud whistlings, 
which was his manner of earning and holding his 




146 Printing Came to Lovely Coffin 


name, and swaggered by us with a nod and on into 
the refreshing depths of the Sleeping Spaniel. Court¬ 
ney and Whitney and I followed to learn what was 
on his mind. 

“In early youth, it seems, this Three-Blast Bar- 
naby person had promised a dying aunt or some one 
that he would never touch any barbed liquor unless 
he was alone or with somebody, so he at once ap¬ 
proached the rail and added some liquid fuel to an 
already-going blaze. Then he turned about with a 
sisterly smile and flashed a roll of yellow bills as 
mountainous as the roller on a proof press. 

“ ‘Citizens o’ Lovely Coffin,’ he said, ‘behoP in the 
li’l oP right mit o’ Three-Blast Barnaby, from the 
man’s town o’ Steeltrap, a li’l present from the ama- 
toor card shufflers o’ Roarin’ Panther. Shortly ago 
it became my crool an’ pleasant dooty to play up a 
pat royal to the strains o’ all I had. Some expensive 
opposition developed, which accounts for the com¬ 
plexion and girth o’ the present bundle. I’m now on 
my celebratin’ way to Steeltrap to circulate it 
some.’ 







Printing Came to Lovely Coffin 147 

—* w~v -•9'WVWV-V-V'r - ri r vvvwwirv' y r'v'v'wwvvv 

“The exhibiter of sudden wealth and fatherly so¬ 
licitude put away his roll of twenties, and about- 
faced for a new supply of inspiration. Then he 
started out of my place. But halfway through the 
front door he stopped long enough to remark: 

“ ‘A camp like Roarin’ Panther is all right enough 
to gather up some spendin’ money in; an’ a corral 
like this Coffin place ain’t so bad as a roadside re¬ 
freshment stand; but when it comes to unwrappin’ 
a roll o’ financial carpet, give me an up-to-date town 
like Steeltrap.’ 

“Silent Lattimer, the faro dealer, half pulled his 
six gun, and Courtney began to organize the two 
fists which had earned him such a rep; but I put 
a restraining hand on the two of them. 

“ ‘Steady, boys,’ I whispered. ‘There isn’t any 
honor associated with the crushing of a human de¬ 
canter. He’s too surrounded and infested with fer¬ 
mented impulsiveness for us to exterminate just yet. 
Besides, he’s mostly conversation, and practically 
harmless. Let him exist and suffer.’ 




148 Printing Came to Lovely Coffin 

r ' r^r-’ v-^ r ^ -r - w ▼ tt ▼ ▼^’T* 

“Then I turned to the man from our rival town, 
a town we always tried to outshine and put some¬ 
thing over on, and asked: 

“ ‘Did I hear you asseverate, Mr. Three-Blast Bar- 
naby, that a certain little flee-bitten group of shacks 
called Rattrap is more there with the morning 
glories than this little town of ours?’ 

“ ‘It appears to me I did specify somethin’ about 
the wide-awake town o’ Steeltrap havin’ it all over 
this little water hole o’ yours,’ he replied. 

“Once more placing soothing hands on Bare- 
Knuckled Courtney and Silent Lattimer, and casting 
an appealing look at Oily Jim Whitney and the 
others in the place, I asked: 

“ ‘May I inquire what new annexation it is that 
so suddenly has elevated that pestilential anti-town 
of yours from the mire of inconsequence?’ 

“ ‘The rushin’-some town o’ Steeltrap,’ boasted 
the visitor, ‘is the owner o’ an honest-to-Jerry, 
bran’-spankin’-new, shinin’, sweet-toned, dazzlin’, 
ivory-keyed, first-o’-its-kind-in-captivity piano ! 9 

“And the spifflicated representative of Steeltrap 
gave his customary three blasts of farewell and 





Printing Came to Lovely Coffin 149 


forthwith went away from the game old town of 
Lovely Coffin. 

“His departure started things in the public room 
of the Sleeping Spaniel. Right then and there we 
unlaced a pow-wow of civic indignation. It was 
openly and distressingly up to us to stamp the brand 
of ownership on something that would jerk our rival 
town out from under its tiara of leadership and 
place the fedora of sovereignty on the brow of 

Lovely Coffin. 

“ ‘This Lovely Coffin town,’ declared Whiskey 
Anderson, ‘ought to have a public fountain put in on 
Liquid Street what would gush forth pure and ex¬ 
uberatin’ red-eye.’ 

“ ‘At least,’ suggested Careless Carson, ‘we should 
ought to have a tattooed bartender or a bearded- 
lady faro dealer.’ 

“ ‘You both mean well enough,’ put in Silent Lat- 
timer, ‘but your education is some wrong. What this 
town needs is a free embalmin’ and buryin’ service. 
At the present time it’s some remorseful for us boys 
to find the streets still cluttered up with departed 
gents days after we’ve been tryin’ out a new six gun.’ 





150 Printing Came to Lovely Coffin 

▼ ry'TT T TTT T ^ V T ’IT ▼ ▼ ▼ T ▼ 

“Many other tendencies were expressed, but the 
only procedure definitely organized was that Bare- 
Knuckled Courtney and yours present were to em¬ 
body a committee of two to approach the capital 
city and collar something superior for the town of 
Lovely Coffin. Anything that w r e picked on would do, 
the boys said, just so we picked on the right thing. 

“The other member of the annexing committee 
and the gent now in your midst decided to head for 
the big community early the next Sunday evening. 
We figured that by riding a good share of the night 
and part of the next morning we’d dodge the torrid 
sunbeams and have a good share of Monday for 
prospecting. But Bare-Knuckled Courtney was to 
break camp and take the trail half an hour ahead of 
me, in order that he might just casual in and pay 
his blandishments to Mrs. Clarabelle Losey, the 
much-visited owner of the Triple-Bar Ranch, a 
short gallop the other side of Steeltrap. Incidentally, 
the courting half of the committee was to elicit the 
widow’s opinion as to what we should do in the way 
of placing a pin in Steeltrap’s toy balloon. 





Printing Came to Lovely Coffin 151 


“Sunday evening arrived, and Bare-Knuckled 
Courtney, established in a sparkling pair of cow¬ 
hides and a new shirt of the complexion of Three- 
Blast Barnaby’s nose, and with his belt of extermin¬ 
ating hardware some absent, as was the custom with 
the boys when they went a-widowing, was given a 
go-get-’em send-away by the delegation assembled to 
cheer us off, and cantered away toward Steeltrap. 

“Thirty minutes later I, with Courtney’s belt in 
my keeping, got on my cayuse and made progress 
in the same direction, accompanied for some distance 
by the plaudits and well wishes of the elite of Lovely 
Coffin. 

“Everything was quiet and Sabbath-like in Steel- 
trap when I passed through. I extended my ears to 
appreciate the instrument which had taken the 
candy from us, but the only undulations of sonor¬ 
ousness from within the buildings were devoted to 
the clinking of gold pieces and the rattle of dice, 
with here and there a repressed Sunday-afternoon 
curse or two proceeding from some devout partici¬ 
pant in a gentlemanly little fist fight. Nearly every- 





152 Printing Came to Lovely Coffin 


body was indoors and parlor-like, waiting for the 
cool of evening before becoming active. 

“But about ten minutes the other side of Steel- 
trap I came slap-bang against a spectacle which 
was some lively and most inspiring. In the middle of 
the crossroads at that place there was ‘just starting, 
just commencing,’ a form of pastime much more in¬ 
teresting than any on tap at Steeltrap at the 
moment. 

“To one side of the main road were a couple of 
bronchos hitched to a buckboard. On the buck- 
board were three guitars and a piano. Two saddle 
ponies were pulling grass near at hand. And in the 
center of the scene, and exchanging blows with 
Three-Blast Barnaby and four other bipeds, was 
Bare-Knuckled Courtney. 

“Later I got the straight of the preliminaries. 
Courtney had overtaken that Barnaby man and his 
hired serenaders on their way to the Widow Losey’s. 
The piano had been chartered from Steeltrap with 
most of the yellow boys won at Roaring Panther. 
Courtney had questioned Three-Blasts’s sportsman¬ 
ship in thus employing public property in the fur- 





Printing Came to Lovely Cofin 153 

f T T 'T T T T ▼ T T”T T' T T T T 

therance of personal ambition. Having plenty of 
company, Barnaby had argued the matter, and, in 
the absence of belt assistance, the disputants had 
resorted to the fistic form of entertainment. 

“Now, Bare-Knuckled Courtney hadn’t had his 
name just wished onto him. He had earned every let¬ 
ter in it time and again by the way in which he had 
engineered those fists of his when occasion had 
tempted. But one against five is some too few, and 
I was just pulling my six gun preparatory to dimin¬ 
ishing the odds somewhat, when another buckboard 
rattled up and came to a stop close beside me. In a 
flash I observed that the second buckboard was 
pretty well filled with many bulky things and cov¬ 
ered with a piece of canvas, and was driven by a 
small-sized red-headed man of snapping blue eyes 
and many movements. And a moment later the owner 
of the lavender tresses and flashing orbs, who 
seemed to have taken things in at a glance, leaned 
over to me and asked in a drawing-room voice: 

“ ‘Has it occurred to you, friend, that the pilgrim 
in the virgin footwear and stentorian shirt ought to 
have a little outside assistance?’ 



154 Printing Came to Lovely Coffin 

■ TT T T TT TTTT T~T ~*T ▼ T~ T "T ~ T ' T ' T^ - T T TTTT ' T TT T T TT f TT T 

44 ‘It surely has,’ I said. 

44 4 And what nationality are you ?’ asked the little 
red-headed man. 

44 ‘Some Scotch, some English, and a little Irish,’ 
I said. 

44 ‘How much Irish?’ he snapped. 

44 ‘About a fourth,’ I replied. 

44 ‘That’s enough,’ he declared, leaping dow T n from 
his seat, and rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. ‘You 
ought to be good for at least one of those birds with 
your gun left out of the matter. Are you ready?” 

“I certainly was, and we invaded the carnage w r ith 
a rush. For a while I was too busy to do much super¬ 
fluous observing, but presently I quieted my man and 
was free to look around a little. Courtney had laid 
out Barnaby and had put the fixings to another 
party, and w r as looking about for additional fields 
of operation, when he learned that there weren’t any 
very handy. The driver of the second buckboard had 
decorated the eyes of one opponent, and was half 
way up a nearby tree after another, who was more 
than glad to surrender. 

44 ‘Who’s your hustling friend, Doc?’ smiled 




Printing Came to Lovely Coffin 155 


Courtney, disowning some forehead perspiration and 
collecting his hat. 

“ ‘Search me!’ I grinned. 

“But the approaching conqueror must have heard 
his question, for, reaching into a pocket of his shirt 
and drawing out a packet of small cards, one of 
which he handed to each of us, the latest arrival 
remarked: 

“ ‘My name and business, gentlemen. If you need 
anything in the line of calling cards, valentines, 
birthday greetings, wedding invitations, prize-fight 
announcements, or funeral memorials, speak up.’ 

“Bare-Knuckled Courtney and I glanced at the 
card given each of us, and the identical inspiration 
seemed to envelop us at one and the same time. 


KOKOMO PETERS 

Traveling Printer 

SLny Irinti of printing 
^perialtg 


was the way my card read. 






156 Printing Came to Lovely Coffin 


“The two members of the annexing committee 
looked each other in our eyes and exchanged winks 
that shouted as loudly as summer thunder that our 
journey was ended and that we had found the thing 
of all things that would boost the town of Lovely 
Coffin head and shoulders over the measly little water 
hole of Steeltrap. 

“And then it was that I made a remark, and the 
little man a reply, which proves what I said at the 
beginning about a fellow never knowing how good 
luck sometimes comes cavorting into town on a paint 
pony and full of intemperate spirits and immodest 
remarks, until looking back afterwards. Three-Blast 
Barnaby’s bragging visit to our town that first day 
was the inciting cause of our meeting up with Mr. 
Kokomo Peters, some printer, and Lovely Coffin’s 
coming into its own. 

“My remark to Peters was, ‘I’d like to order a 
thousand business cards for the new firm of Peters, 
Courtney & Claypool, printers to all humanity, head 
office on Liquid Street, in the hustling-some town of 
Lovely Coffin. Could you print some of them on this 






Printing Came to Lovely Coffin 157 


sheaf of twenties for us?’ And I handed over a 
bundle of yellow bills. 

“Peters’s reply was, ‘Gentlemen, I accept the 
honor and the order in behalf of the new firm of 
Peters, Courtney & Claypool. But shall we wait to 
run the cards off at the main office on Liquid Street, 
or do it right here, where we seem to have plenty of 
platen-press power going to waste?’ And he noncha¬ 
lantly surveyed the five battered opponents of a few 
minutes before.” 






A Broadway Talk on Make-up 

.As I started for a brisk walk up lower Broadway 
the other evening, whom should I meet headed in the 
same direction but Jerry Wheeler, the make-up man. 

Now, if there’s one thing more than another—and 
there certainly is one thing—that Jerry Wheeler is 
extra fussy about, that one thing is the mechanical 
appearance of a page of composition. Jerry has 
been known to manhandle recalcitrant editors for 
disturbing his “unit compilations,” and he has even 
carried the palm of correction into the precincts of 
the advertising room whenever a newcomer in the 
publicity domain has committed a stroke of glaring 
misconception in the employment of printing sur¬ 
faces. And there you have Jerry Wheeler—or do 
you? 

Jerry and I had been walking along at about 
seven lines a minute for some time, when he decided 
to brighten up our pathway with a few select asper¬ 
sions. 

158 


A Broadway Talk on Make-up 159 


“How’d 3^ou like to work all day,” asked Jerry, 
“with a bunch of never-were typos who parade 
through the payroll under the titles of ‘editor’ and 
‘publicity specialist’ and ‘type consultant,’ and a 
lot of other bunk that balls up the game of type¬ 
handling? I imagine you could manage to be at least 
partially happy if deprived of that privilege, eh?” 

“Perhaps I could,” I countered. Jerry’s uttered 
vagaries always interest me, for really he’s a most 
likeable fellow when away from the subject of make¬ 
up. Besides, I like to listen to nearly anybody with 
positive ideas. “Who’s been pieing your pet the¬ 
ories, today, Jerry?” 

“We had wished on us this morning,” said the 
make-up man, “a human-like being christened a ‘lay¬ 
out engineer.’ Do you get that last part, though? 
I suppose he’s taken a correspondence course in sur¬ 
veying, or used to have a cousin who lived next door 
to a round-house, or in some other valorous fashion 
has collided with that term ‘engineer’ until he has 
come to believe he really has something on that 
word.” 




160 A Broadway Talk on Make-up 

t * ▼ y r' w * ************ ▼ ▼▼▼▼▼▼▼ • w-w t t t t y ? <r 

“What’s the name of your new friend, Jerry?” I 
smiled. “And what has he done to you?” 

“His name,” replied the make-up man; “that is, 
the word just preceding that ‘lay-out engineer’ 
bunk, is Mortimer. By rights it ought to be Mortu¬ 
ary. And if he proceeds to get new with me again 
it’s going to be worse than that. 

“He has ideas—I guess I can employ that term 
here if I don’t care what I say—that the printing 
business is a little abandoned child who has been 
playing in the sandpile and who now requires his 
services in the brushing-up line. He has decided to be 
kind to the art preservative and rescue it from the 
inefficiency of untoward progress. Hereafter the 
mixed pages of the Weekly Modulator are going to 
‘evanesce,’ be ‘synchronized,’ and so forth. And I 
guess this Mortimer person thinks he’s going to do 
these things and still continue to patronize the ozone 
supply of little old Gotham.” 

Jerry stopped talking as we picked our w r ay across 
Canal Street. But pretty soon he opened fire again. 

“This afternoon that Mortimer specimen came 
out to my stone and began to talk to me. But he 



A Broadway Talk on Make-up 161 

didn’t converse very long. He hadn’t much more 
than started handing out advice, when a brotherly 
grasp of mine was placed about the apex of his 
spinal column and Mr. Mortimer and Jerry Wheeler 
found ourselves doing the grand march out of 
the composing-room and into Mortimer’s boudoir. 
‘Here we are, Mr. Mortimer,’ I remarked, as I cozily 
seated him in his chair and started away, ‘all safe 
and sound after a hazardous little trip into forbid¬ 
den territory. I trust that you enjoyed your per¬ 
sonally conducted return. Hereafter when I need 
you I’ll set fire to the City Hall. Otherwise, you’re 
supposed to be hibernating far from the sound of 
going type machines.’ 

“Well, our ‘lay-out engineer’ was pretty game, 
at that. I’ll give him credit for everything he’s got 
coming to him. I’m quite a bit bigger than he is, 
physically, and he did have the nerve to give me an 
interesting smile as I went away.” 

Somehow or other Jerry’s last sentence sketched 
in my mind a very familiar picture. And the fel¬ 
low’s name was Mortimer, for a fact. Mortimer, 
and little, and smiling. I wondered . . . 




162 A Broadway Talk on Make-up 


T TTTTT TT TT TT T T T T ~TT T T T T T VT TT T T T TTTTTTT TT r 

But my thoughts were interrupted by an exclama¬ 
tion from Jerry. 

“For the love of the art of typography!” ex¬ 
claimed the make-up man. “If right there ahead of 
us isn’t Mortimer!” 

Standing on the sidewalk at East Eleventh Street 
and Broadway, and interestedly surveying the south 
wall of the wholesale clothing firm right next door 
to old Grace Church was Jerry’s lay-out engineer— 
my little friend Billy Mortimer, expert typographer, 
of the old days on the Torchlight out in the West. 

I reached out and down and lifted my friend Billy 
up, and shook his hand, and looked him over, and 
asked him a hundred questions, and finally had him; 
shake hands with Jerry Wheeler. 

As I have said, Jerry is a likeable fellow in most 
ways, and when he saw that Billy was a good friend 
of mine, Jerry cut out the picturesque superlatives 
and got pretty friendly. 

When the joyous remarks had been passed around 
several times, I suggested that we continue on up 
the street. Jerry was willing enough; but little 
Billy Mortimer didn’t seem so inclined to move along. 





A Broadway Talk on Make-up 163 

V V T " y ▼ ▼~'T ▼ T" ▼ '▼ IT ^ ▼ «T '▼' ▼ Ti r y T 

I noticed him look once or twice from Jerry to 
the side of that brick wall close at hand, and felt 
that he wanted to say something about the work of 
masonry. Finally Mortimer smilingly said: 

“Mr. Wheeler, have you any objection to my 
directing your attention to a matter which rather 
strikingly demonstrates a point which I attempted 
to convey to you in our—er—interrupted conversa¬ 
tion today?” 

“Not at all,” blushed Jerry. “Let’s have it.” 

“Well, gentlemen,” remarked the little type ex¬ 
pert, “right here in front of us is a fine old church 
with a modern business building right next door to 
it. But notice how the south wall of the clothing con¬ 
cern’s building has been made to harmonize with the 
architectural scheme of the church property. The 
esthetic and the commercial stand side by side—and 
yet they do not clash. They really evanesce; they 
are synchronized into one acceptable presentation. 
In a striking way the church and the business build- 
ing portray the proper sort of magazine rear page. 
The church is the editorial matter; the business 
building is the advertising stuff. And the proper sort 






164 A Broadway Talk on Make-up 

''T-wir-y r 'w ▼▼ ■r v -^r ^r-y r- ▼ - ^r ^r ’▼ - ’■r -r t ▼ w^ r w ▼ 

of typographic treatment should produce at least as 
much harmony between the editorial and advertis¬ 
ing stuff on a page as there is in these structures 
here before us.” 

“Billy,” I said, “I believe that you really know 
what you’re talking about; and Jerry Wheeler does, 
too, or I miss my guess. And I’m going to suggest 
that both of you fellows need each other, and that 
the only sensible thing for you to do is to get to¬ 
gether in that same sort of harmony which we have 
been discussing for the last several minutes. Give 
me your hands—both of you !” 

I placed their hands together in a silent agree¬ 
ment of co-operation, and as their mutual grasp 
tightened and they began to smile warmly upon each 
other, I felt that they really “evanesced” and were 
“synchronized.” 






The Isle o' W oman 


4 ^ 4 ^ 

I PUT down my hunting coat and gun case in the 
public room of the little hostelry, and placed upon a 
small table the gallon jug of cider which my hunting 
host and hostess had insisted on my taking away 
with me. 

As I appropriated a seat beside the table, which 
was near the stove, and from which a good view 
might be had, through the window, of the railway 
station and tracks across the way, I heard the sound 
of labored human breathing. 

Almost simultaneously with the discovery on my 
part of the difficult mortal respiration, I became 
aware that the room harbored another person than I. 
A little man with a head in the likeness of a small 
pink dirigible airship occupied a seat a little to my 
left. From the lower extremity of the flying ma¬ 
chine depended an abundant harvest of gray whiskers 
which suggested a rift of clouds ahead; his much- 

inflamed eyes resembled a pair of dimmed search- 

165 



Now, mister,” he said, “I’ll tell you all about the Isle o’ Woman. 


























The Isle o J Woman 


167 


■TTTTTTTT V-T-y T VTTyT T TT TT TTTT T TT’f T T T - T-y-y T T T T 

lights; and his lower lip quite easily could have an¬ 
swered the purpose of a lookout platform on such a 
craft. He was hatless, and wore a pair of faded 
blue overalls which he failed to inhabit to capacity. 
Moreover, he was smoking a stogy the odor of 
which was reminiscent of a woolen-mill conflagration. 

“Hello, General,” I remarked to the little man. 
“How’d you like to have a drink or two of good 
cider?” 

The aged fellow disappeared from the room and in 
a minute returned with two rusty tin cups, one much 
larger than the other. He placed the smaller cup 
before me and kept the larger. Then he brought his 
chair to the table and seated himself directly across 
from me. 

The fact that my train was not due for some time 
yet caused me no concern. The air was quite sharp 
without, while the warmth radiated by the old stove 
within was quite comforting. Furthermore, there re¬ 
posed in my hunting coat, bagged the day before, 
fifteen fine quailand a long-distance call from the 
city had assured me that our company had just se¬ 
cured another big contract for printing. 



168 


The Isle o Woman 


t ▼ t t *r ” * r-v t ▼ ▼ t t ▼ ▼▼▼▼▼▼ v 

I filled both tin cups, saying, as I did so, “Here 
we go, Commodore. Here’s to our better acquaint¬ 
ance.” And the old fellow fell to with gusto. 

Finishing my cupful, I remembered another pres¬ 
ent which my hostess, an ardent suffragette, had in¬ 
sisted on making me, and drew from my hip pocket 
the little hand-bill with the large heading, “Votes for 
Women.” As I glanced over the bill, I noticed, out 
of the corner of one e}^e, that the old fellow’s gaze 
made several round trips from the hand-bill to his 
empty cup. Then he seemed to become inspired, and 
asked, “Ever hear o’ the Isle o’ Woman?” 

“No,” I answered; “though I’ve heard of the Isle 
of Man.” 

“I don’t know nothin’ about your Isle o’ Man,” he 
declared, “but I’ll bet it ain’t got nothin’ on the Isle 
o’ Woman. I’d like to tell you all about this yere 
place. Now, if I only had—” 

He checked himself, but eloquently eyed his empty 
cup. 

I replenished the little fellow’s cider supply; and 
again he consumed the liquid refreshment in one ex¬ 
quisite draught. 





The Isle o’ Woman 


169 


"IT V V ▼ ▼ ▼ ~^T V ▼ “ T ▼ '"V ' V " ‘ T '▼ "V '▼ ■ ▼" 

“Thanks,” he said, putting aside the empty cup, 
and discarding the reeking stogy. “You’re very kind. 

Now, mister, I’ll tell you about the Isle o’ Woman.” 

• •••••• 

In the first place it were called the Isle o’ Bliss, 
and that’s when it were swell, and when I was the 
happy editor o’ the Island Eye and jedge o’ the Soo- 
preme Court there. But now they calls it the Isle o’ 
Woman. ’Cause why? That’s the story. If I hadn’t 
jist saw that hand-bill o’ yours, maybe I wouldn’t 
a remembered how the names got changed. But I 
sees it all clear now; and it jist goes to show what 
one woman can do when she gets started. 

Now, o’ course, you won’t find this yere island on 
no map, ’cause it ain’t very big, and, besides, there 
ain’t many what knows about it. But it’s reel, all 
right, and it ain’t two hundred miles from New York, 
neither. And, take it from me, mister, it sure is some 
place. It’s got up-to-date cafes, department stores, 
a op’ra house, high school, college, liberry, court 
house, a penitentiary—and cider parlors. 





170 


The Isle o Woman 


•^r^r^r- y r ” ▼ ▼ - yr ▼ t ▼ *r ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼■ ▼ t ^t ▼ ▼'▼ t ▼ t ▼ ? t~ 

[The editor-judge dwelt longingly on the last 
phrase, but, seeing that I remained unmoved, con¬ 
tinued.] 

And fer four lovely, joyful years I was the editor 
o’ the Island Eye and jedge o’ the Soo-preme Court 
there, there bein’ only one other with more authority 
than me, him bein’ the president. 

Well, sir, durin’ them four years, ever’ evenin’ I’d 
step into my tourin’ car outside o’ the court-house 
and be druv home to my lovin’ wife, what would meet 
me in front o’ our pretty cottage. 

Fer four sweet years, as I have said, ever’thing 
was lovely—and then somethin’ happened. 

One afternoon I steps from my tourin’ car and en¬ 
ters the garden in front o’ our cottage; but no lovin’ 
wife is there to welcome me home after a hard 
mornin’s work, which is reel suprisin’. But as I ap¬ 
proaches our little summer house, I hears voices. 

I peeps through the trailin’ vines what covers this 
yere place, and sees a mannish-lookin’ dame a talkin’ 
to my wife. Right quick I spreads my ear and listens. 

“My dear sister,” says the one what ain’t my wife, 
“you should throw off the yoke o’ slavery. Us women 





The Isle o' Woman 


171 


must organize,” says she, “and down the tyrant 
man!” 

“But the Jedge is jist a darlin’,” says my wife. 
“He don’t drink, and he don’t break up no furni¬ 
ture, and he don’t make me chop the wood,” says 
she, “without a sharp ax,” says she. 

“But the fact remains,” goes on this stranger 
party, “that you is subject to his rool and author¬ 
ity. It is ever’ woman’s dooty to demand the ballot,” 
says she. “Now, sister, we’re goin’ to have a meetin’ 
at the op’ra house this evenin’, and you must promise 
me you’ll come,” says she. 

“All right,” says my wife, reel solemn; “if you 
think it’s us women’s dooty to demand the ballot, I’ll 
be there. I’m not the one to shirk a social work o’ 
sech importance,” says she. 

I waits to hear no more, but rushes into the house 
like a mad gent—me, who, in them days, was a model 
husband, editor o’ the Island Eye , and jedge o’ the 
Soo-preme Court. 

When my wife comes in a few minutes later and 
sees me sittin’ reel unwell in my easy chair, she cries, 
“What’s the trouble, dear? Is you ill?” 



172 


The Isle o’ Woman 


“Ill is right,” says I, and then I told her I’d heard 
all. “But you ain’t a-goin’ to the meetin’, are you, 
dear?” I asks, in finishin’. 

“It’s my dooty,” she replies. “Us women,” says 
she, “must demand our rights.” 

“I’m sorry, dear,” I says, reel desp’rate; “but if 
you attends that meetin’, it’s me fer the sad sea 
waves, fer I don’t want no sufferjet fer no wife o’ 
mine,” says I. 

She listens to all my entreaties, but is firm in her 
resolve and goes to the meetin’. 

I sits alone fer a long time after she had went, 
thinkin’ what I’d better do with myself now, now that 
my lovin’ wife had jined the sufferjets. I thinks some 
o’ self-extinction, but I’m not strong fer that, 
though; then I thinks o’ desertion, and it’s while I’m 
thinkin’ o’ this last thing that I gets a grand idee. Re¬ 
member, mister, I was forced to do what I was about 
to do. 

Well, with this idee in mind, I goes down to the 
main cider parlor and takes on a large supply o’ 
a Ppl e juice—me, who had been the ideal man o’ the 






The Isle o’ Woman 


173 


▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ TTTTTTTT T T T ‘’V T T r 

Isle o’ Bliss. Incidentally, I tosses some Irish con¬ 
fetti through the plate-glass winders o’ sev’ral de¬ 
partment stores, and otherwise makes myself liable 
to prosecution—all o’ which I does in the carryin’ 
out o’ my idee. 

No one says nothin’ to stop me, fer I’m the editor 
o’ the Island Eye and jedge o’ the Soo-preme Court; 
but they looks at me reel queer, not guessin’ the 
reason fer my actions. 

After I had stacked up sev’ral charges agin’ my¬ 
self, I sidewalks home and rolls in. 

Next mornin’ I’m sittin’ on the edge o’ my bed, 
with my achin’ head atween my hands, enjoyin’ the 
gentle after effects o’ my first stroll from the right¬ 
eous path, when my wife enters the room and begs me 
to reform before it’s too late. 

“Woman,” says I, “this is your work! You has 
shattered my editorial and joodicial life. Until yes- 
tidy,” says I, “we was as happy as Adam and Eve in 
the Garden o’ Allah, but now you’ve went and eat 
the oranges!” 

My wife leaves the room, sobbin’ reel promiscuss, 
but I stands firm by my idee. 





174 The Isle o Woman 

▼▼▼▼▼▼▼ w m, w yr ▼ ▼ •v~T’ 


I slips into my law clothes and hurries down 
town. I goes straight to the court-house. 

When I enters the court-room there is no one 
there but the bailiff. “Bailiff,” cries I, “arrest me!” 

The bailiff looks at me reel wonderin’, but when 
I insists, he leads me up to the pris’ners’ rail. 

“The court is opened,” says I. “Bailiff, I’m your 
pris’ner, and I’ll try myself right away.” 

The bailiff sinks into a chair, reel weak, and I 
steps up to my seat on the bench. 

“Jedge,” says I, addressin’ myself, “you’re ac¬ 
cused o’ being unharmonious last night, and o’ actin’ 
like no editor and jedge ought to act. Is you guilty 
or not guilty?” 

“Guilty,” says I. 

“And does you waive all preliminary bearin’?” 

“I does,” says I. 

“Then I hereby sentences you fer life,” sa}^s I. 
“Bailiff, remove your pris’ner!” 

So the bailiff takes me over to the penitentiary, 
and I’m put in them white duds with the black 
stripes on ’em. And fer two long months I walks the 
floor o’ my cell, thinkin’ how much fun I’m havin’ 






The Isle o Woman 


175 


by not livin’ with no suffer jet. But a feller gets 
awful dry in two months. 

[The editor-judge paused. No doubt his recol¬ 
lection of those two months caused him to become 
thirsty. Once again I refilled his tin cup. He imbibed 
the cider with the air of a martyr. “Thanks,” he 
said. “You’re very appreciative. Now I must step 
back into the penitentiary again and the striped 
duds.”] 

Fer two months, as I have said, I lays in self- 
inflicted bondage. Then one day I hears fireworks 
outside and the sound o’ many voices raised in song. 
All day it continues, and at night the noises grows 
louder. I listens reel close and the voices sounds like 
women’s. 

“What day is this?” I asks o’ the gent in the 
next cell, I havin’ sent him there when I was jedge. 

“Election day,” says he, and then he don’t talk 
no more, him havin’ a grudge agin’ me. 

Next mornin’ I’d fergot all about the noises and 
singin’ o’ the day and night afore, and was thinkin’ 
how nice it would be to be home and free agin, when 

a deputy warden comes up. 






176 


The Isle o' WOman 


■▼ t v t - t t t v ' T ' v T TT T TTT Ty r - v t-t t- t t t t ttt tt tt tt ttt ' 

“Jedge,” says he, “you’re wanted in the office. Fol¬ 
low me,” says he. 

We goes into the warden’s office, and the first per¬ 
son I sees there is my w r ife. 

“Oh! Jedgc,” cries she, rushin’ up and a-kissin’ o’ 
me, “you’re pardoned! I’m the new president. I’ve 
been so busy campaignin’ fer the last two months 
that I ain’t had time to see you even once. You must 
change clothes right away and come up to the White 
House.” 

“Gee!” says I. “Can this yere be true?” 

Well, mister, o’ course we moved into the White 
House. And the very first day we was there, all the 
dames on the island comes up to see the president. 
They has a petition with ’em about a block long, all 
the dames on the island havin’ signed it. 

“Mrs. President,” says the dame w r hat started all 
the trouble, she as talked to my wife in our little 
summer house, “us women herewith petitions vou to 
change the name o’ this yere place. We, havin’ 
downed mere man, proposes to rechristen this yere 
island the ‘Isle o’ Woman’.” 




The Isle o’ Woman 


T-^r 


177 






“Feller sisters,” says my wife, “the petition is 
granted.” 

And that, mister, is how the names got changed. 

• •••#* #• 

The editor-judge looked at me solemnly. 

“But how about yourself?” I smiled. “You are not 
there now. What prompted you to leave?” 

“That’s easy,” said the little old man. “I soon got 
tired o’ listenin’ to ever’ one that come to the White 
House callin’ my wife ‘Mrs. President’ and not 
noticin’ me none, so one dark night I puts off fer New 
York by rowboat.” 

“So you gave up a home in the White House on 
the Isle of Woman,” I questioned, “because you 
didn’t wish to be subject to your wife’s authority?” 

“Exactly!” said the editor-judge. “Mister, the 
woman don’t live what can dictate to me!” 

As the little fellow volunteered this emphatic in¬ 
formation, a shadow passed across the table. I 
glanced up just in time to catch a glimpse of a 
human figure hurrying past the window. The next 
instant a woman stood in the doorway. She was red- 



178 


The Isle o’ Woman 


■ t ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ t ▼ t t r ▼ •yr ▼ ^r~ ▼ ▼ T"T~r 

haired, and huge of frame. With bared-to-the-elbow 
arms placed akimbo, she menacingly contemplated 
the editor-judge and me. 

“Walter!” 

She uttered that single word in a deep-roaring 
bass. 

The old chap saw and heard, and perceptibly 
shrivelled up in his chair. The figure in the door¬ 
way went on: 

“What have I told you about bangin’ around this 
hotel! You git straight home to that batch o’ 
washin’!” 

The poor editor-judge cast one embarrassed look 
in my direction—the while I thought I detected a 
slight shrinkage of the dirigible—and slunk from 
the room. The woman followed, talking excitedly 
and gesticulating wildly. 

Outside I heard the whistle of the approaching 
train. I picked up my hunting coat and gun case and 
left the room. In the hallway I nearly ran into the 
landlord, who had approached in time to hear and 
see the departure of the little man. 






The Isle o' Womari 


179 


“The Judge certainly must have seen some country 
in his day,” I winked, in passing. “He has just related 
for me one of his remarkable experiences.” 

“Do you mean old Walt Hardy?” snickered the 
landlord. “The only country he’s ever seen has been 
right here to home. He ain’t no jedge, neither, 
less’n you mean a jedge o’ cider—and his audience!” 







Dobbs and I Construct 
a Christmas Card 

A. LONG about knee-deep in November my good 
friend Dobbs paraded himself into the precincts of 
my presence and released much philosophic discourse. 

“Brother,” he began, with an erudite look below 
his eyeshade, “just a few more ticks of the calendar 
will precipitate about us once again another session 
of the gay and festive season—the time of year when 
people think of still-are and once-were friends, apply 
the feather duster to acquaintance-lists, and flood the 
mail with messages of cheer. So why not do a little 
planning in advance and build ourselves a dandy 
Christmas card?” 

“Old chap,” I said, “you own a handsome hunch. 
The same idea but recently has sojourned in my own 
cerebrum. I’m for the gentle scheme and for it strong. 
And two such clever things as we should find it 
anti-difficult to make the brothers gasp: ‘Hey, Jim¬ 
mie, have you glimpsed their latest card? Believe me, 


A Christmas Card 


181 


T T T tt ▼ -v -r -r t -t tt tt t tt tt t t"t ' ttttt t tt t r T T-T- r - r 

boy, they surely know their stuff*!’ So suppose we 
take an hour off some evening soon and do the thing 
up brown. 

“You’re on,” said Dobbs, and the misdemeanor 
was launched. 

Half a month later Dobbs and I commingled one 
sundown to localize that card. Now, Dobbs and I 
are horribly brilliant, you know, and we were in on 
the fact that we could make abbreviated play of 
that little job whenever we selected. Consequently, 
we weren’t all a-tremble to crowd matters at the 
very take-off. Instead, we got behind a duet of long 
cigars and perpetrated much casual dialogue. And 
so, even when our stogies had been well incinerated 
and the conversation had become anemic, we had not 
quite reached the subject of the card. But before 
we disassociated ourselves that night it was agreed 
that we should confab soon and organize that lulu 
message. 

However, November had shrunk from the instant 
to the ultimo, and December was monopolizing the 
calendar, when Dobbs and I assembled ourselves 
again. And for a second time the sentiment was ours 





182 


A Christmas Card 


that there was little sense or poetry in rushing 
something we could clamp the glad sign on whenever 
we listed. So additional stogies were destroyed and 
more persiflage was coined preliminary to the train¬ 
ing of our howitzers of thought upon the big idea. 

At length, however, with dark-blue halos of far- 
from-Havana incense undulating about our heads, we 
agitated our respective mentalities in the most ap¬ 
proved intellectual fashion, with the earnest inten¬ 
tion of starting something with a most splendiferous 
hunch. 

But for some reason or other the superlative no¬ 
tion declined to fraternize that night. Dobbs and I 
provoked many false starts, but enjoyed no real in¬ 
troduction. So again we postponed our seance with 
inspiration and went away from each other. 

More days squandered themselves and at length 
mid-December rang the cosmic time-clock. And in the 
midst of a noon-day taking-of-the-air along News¬ 
paper How, I comprehended Dobbs making progress 
my way. 

By that time much thinking of that man and of 
a certain item of unborn printing had made my nerv- 






T 1 v 


A Christmas Card 


183 


TTTVTT TTTTTTT T T "T T T T T T T T T T ' T ▼ T T T T'T T T T 1 


ous system even more so, and I was far from crav¬ 
ing conversation with Dobbs. Accordingly, I sub¬ 
merged the topmost section of sincerely yours in the 
depths of my overcoat collar and prepared to give 
that printer-man the slip. 

But Dobbs must have periscoped me, too, and en¬ 
joyed similar emotions, for when I dodged through 
the chief portals of a soda shop to avoid his embar¬ 
rassing gaze, he ducked through another inlet to the 
same oasis, just to keep from overcrowding me—and 
a second or so later we came in strenuous and crim- 
son-hued contact. 

Each of us tried to register surprise, but neither 
of us got away with it. Then we attempted to relax 
about the mouth—and missed on at least five cylin¬ 
ders. Finally, we grew quite imbecilic and began to 
talk. 

“About—er—that Christmas card—” blundered 
Dobbs. 

“Y—e—s, of course,” I stammered, “to be sure, 
about that—er—Christmas card.” 


And then because the fearful topic had been 
dragged right into the limelight and nothifig worse 






184 


A Christmas Card 


t t ▼ •yr v - V'-yr 1 " ▼ 

remained to happen, my courage limped out of hid¬ 
ing and suggested other and more sensible state¬ 
ments. 

“And you’re quite right, Dobbs,” I reassured; 
“quite right. Old December’s getting all cluttered up 
with cross-marks, and here we haven’t tamed that 
Christmas card yet. So let’s convene ourselves in a 
day or two and trounce things into shape.” 

Of course, Dobbs grabbed at the chance to dimin¬ 
ish our embarrassment, and once again we went away 
from each other. 

But at least one of us neglected to diminish our 
supply of worriment, for my next half-week of semi¬ 
life was crammed with nightmares of Dobbs and that 
unsung card. Those two subjects deprived me of such 
copious quantities of food and slumber that my com¬ 
plexion became as saffron as a yellow journal and 
the rest of me as nervous as a dish of jelly. 

And, just as if those little blessings weren’t mul¬ 
titudinous enough, I began to lose my once-was-ar- 
dent friendliness for Dobbs; for constant mental 
proofreading of that man had awakened flaws which 
clamored to be recognized. His feet, I came to 





A Christmas Card 


185 


*T T T ' Ty TTT Tt T T TTTTT' T T T TTT T TT' T T T TT ^ " T T t T T T' T'r 

gather, were much too huge for any gentleman, his 
ears by far too broad for respectability, and his 
constant questioning look was downright sinful. 

So, of course, it became my duty to avoid such an 
evil influence, and I forthwith dedicated myself to 
dodging Dobbs. 

At length, however, December twentieth happened, 
and with it came a sweetly solemn thought. At once 
1 abandoned myself to Dobbs and conversation. 

“About that—er—Christmas card—” I began. 

“Yes, of course,” blushed Dobbs; “to be sure, 
about that—er—Christmas card.” 

“In another quartet of days,” I hurried on, “the 
yuletide season will sift across the door sill, so we 
really haven’t the time to do that missive justice. 
Of course, if we had a week or two to spare, we could 
get together for an hour or so some evening and 
turn the thing out right. But we simply haven’t those 
golden moments left, and we’d better stay away 
from the polls altogether than to vote for the wrong 
result. So why not just select some neatly printed 
cards and have our signatures run off below the 
holly?” 






186 


A Christmas Card 


T T T T T ~ T T - yTYTTTTTTTTT T T T T T ▼ T ▼ T ▼ Y T T T ' T T T ' ' T T" T ▼ 

“That thought,” said Dobbs, “is completely im¬ 
bued with sense. It’s university' trained, and it 
sparkles all over with poetry. So let’s step ourselves 
out in a day or so, select a modest little card all 
ready for finishing school, and wave the go-ahead 
sign to the pressman.” 

December one-score-and-three had been left in 
the past when Dobbs and I got together again. 

“About that—er—Christmas card—” blushed 
Dobbs. 

“Yes, of course,” I replied; “to be sure, about 
that—er—Christmas card.” And then I continued: 
“But tomorrow’ll be Christmas, you know, and it’s 
really too late now to run off those cards—if we had 
them in semi-pro form. With a week or so more of 
grace, we could take an hour off some day and make 
a wonderful choosing for final embellishment. But 
there isn’t a chance for that now. So w r hy not let’s 
call the bets off and handle matters the usual and 
always-was way?” 

“You’re on,” said Dobbs. And so we did. 

But next year Dobbs and I are going to build our¬ 
selves a Christmas message that’ll make the broth- 








A Christmas Card 


187 


TTT ** V W V W V W ^ ^ W W V V V W W V V V V W ^ ^ W 'V T~T T T T T 

ers gasp: “Hey, Jimmie, have you seen their latest 
card? Believe me, boy, they surely know their stuff!” 
In the meantime: 


Merry Christmas in Italics , and 
Happy New Year in the Same 


( 30 ) 

(Which means that there isn’t any more) 
















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111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 















































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































